


the home inside your head

by writeriguess



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, all the usual suspects will make appearances, blake deals with depression anxiety and healing, except adam cause fuck him., mentions of abuse, okay so it's turning into a slow burn, so much domestic bees, the house renovation au nobody asked for, yang's horny for construction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2020-09-07 06:00:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 62,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20304607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeriguess/pseuds/writeriguess
Summary: While renovating her house, Yang takes in a friend of Weiss’ who needs a place to regroup after ending things with an abusive ex.Blake learns how renovating a house can look a lot like recovery.-She presses hope between her ribs like petals between pages and thinks of new beginnings, of growth.





	1. beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> This story is primarily about healing and rebuilding (both literally and figuratively).  
As a forewarning, while Adam never actually shows up in this story, his influence on Blake will be heavily referenced and at play in her POV sections.

Leading Weiss back into the dour brown living room, Yang spins on her heel, fists to her waist and toothy grin spread wide on her lips.

“So, what do you think?”

Weiss’ face twists, a painful contortion caught between trying to maintain polite neutrality and failing miserably. Yang tries not to laugh.

“Honestly?” Weiss asks, takes a moment to circle in place as if she hasn’t already made up her mind, drafted a long slew of despondent adjectives for the place during Yang’s guided tour. Yang snorts at the effort.

“Would I ever ask you to lie?” Yang asks, hurries to add, “Don’t answer that,” with a grimace and roll of her eyes. “Yes, honestly. What’s your take?”

Weiss drags at a breath, sips on hesitance before letting out in a tone pebbled with sharp skepticism, “It’s a total shithole, Yang.”

A bark of laughter slips from Yang’s throat, delighted. She slings a heavy arm over Weiss’ shoulders and grins as she waves a hand around at the dim living room, ugly wooden paneling on the far walls and stained, brown carpet under their feet.

“Ah, but you’re leaving out the best part, Weiss. It’s _my_ shithole house.”

Weiss side-eyes her over a look that says _yikes_. “It sure is.”

“Oh c’mon, you’re really gonna stand there and tell me you can’t see the potential of the place? It has great bones. Tear down a couple walls, rip out all this gross brown carpet -maybe some nice tile instead- replace those hideous cabinets, update the bathrooms - and blam! _You’ll_ be dying to live here by the time I’m done with the place.”

“Sure, Yang,” Weiss says, condescendingly patting Yang on the cheek. Her eye roll doesn’t go unnoticed but only makes Yang’s grin deepen. “Sounds like an awful lot of work, to me.”

“It’ll take a while, sure, but thanks to _that woman_, I’ve got the money and it’s going to pay off in the end.”

“I still don’t get why you bought something you have to fix up,” Weiss presses, nose wrinkling as her eyes skid around the room.

“Because, I could really use a project to keep my mind busy right now and it’ll bring in way more than I’ve invested once it’s finished. And besides, in the meantime it keeps me close to Ruby while she’s in school.”

“Right. Well, I’ve got a four hour drive ahead of me tonight and I still haven’t packed so I’ll leave you to it. Whenever you’re ready for design input let me know. Until then, don’t expect my help.”

It yanks another laugh from Yang. “Oh please, Princess, like I’d even trust you with a screwdriver.”

\----

It’s been three years since Blake’s last seen Weiss. She hasn’t been back to Vale since Adam got a job some four hours’ drive from Beacon and uprooted their lives in the city. 

She was overjoyed to get the call from Weiss last week that she was going to be in town for a law conference one of her professors had invited her to and wanted to meet up with Blake. When Weiss asked if she’d be free to grab dinner or drinks after her conference let out, Blake jumped at the opportunity to see her.

While they had managed to stay in loose contact since Blake had moved, it wasn’t the same as catching up in person, and Weiss has been so busy in law school over the past two years that even their occasional contact had dwindled to seldom replies and long periods of unanswered texts and missed phone calls. 

When she meets Weiss at the bar of the hotel she’s staying at, Blake can feel her friend’s sharp critique over her appearance like a fine-toothed comb against her skin. She tries not to shrink any more than she already stands, knows her friend hasn’t missed the heavy bags under her eyes, the way her clothes hang loose on her thin frame, the way her posture holds wound tight to take up minimal space. 

Weiss has ever been the observant type, whether she chooses to out with her observations or not. Blake holds her breath, but Weiss simply wraps her in a quick hug and guides them to a nearby table. 

Blake glances at her phone to make sure Adam hasn’t gotten home and texted. 

“How’ve you been?” Blake asks. She remembers bits and pieces Weiss has mentioned over the last year about breaking ties with her family, something she’d never been able to bring herself to follow through with until recently. 

She listens to Weiss spiel about the stresses of law school, about the fellowship one of her professors helped her secure so she could afford to continue studying after losing her father’s financial backing, about the life she’s carved out for herself in Vale since Blake’s leaving.

Listening to Weiss talk about her life, about her accomplishments and striving toward her dreams, about overcoming her family ties and becoming her own person, Blake feels a revival of a deep burning desire to do the same, a longing to break free, to become, to escape. 

Weiss seems to sense her stirring thoughts. She stares at Blake a long moment like she’s weighing her, weighing the thoughts swirling in her own head, before she broaches them. “You know you’re always free to visit me in Vale whenever you’d like.”

She sees an opportunity opening up in front of her, a way out like a first breath after drowning. She’s not sure how to speak it, how to ask, all the words thick and sharp in her throat like thorns. 

Weiss reaches out and lightly grips Blake’s hand resting on the table, an odd show of affection for Weiss who’s always been so contained, so distant. 

“Blake, if you-” She takes a deep breath, seems to hesitate then steel herself, forge on carefully. “If you want to come, you should come, regardless of what Adam does or doesn’t want. If you _need _to come - my home is always open to you, for however long you need.” 

Blake swallows shards, hearing the offer behind the words, the shielded allusion to the shame she keeps hidden, the secrets she’s tried -seems to have failed- to keep from everyone around her, these shames that Adam stands staunch guard around. She thinks of red and blooming bruises, of the urge to run that’s never had a way out before. 

She shudders over shaky breaths, sight blurring even as she begs herself to hold it down, hold her fissured facade together. 

Weiss’ hand squeezes hers lightly. 

“I’ve known you for a long time, Blake, and I want to keep knowing you for a long time. If-” She stops to clear her throat and Blake’s head snaps up, realizing for the first time that Weiss is tearing up as well. “I know firsthand how hard it can be to get out of... tough... home situations. I don’t presume to know exactly what yours is -and I won’t press or pry for you to explain- but-” she breaks off again, swallows, seems to be trying to hold her own pieces together, wipes at tears that haven’t rolled out of her eyes. “Well, I’m driving back to Vale tomorrow morning and my car has plenty of space for some boxes and a friend.”

Blake’s shaking hard enough she’s sure Weiss can feel it in her hand. Her grip doesn’t let go, thankfully doesn’t squeeze again or lighten up either, like she’s knows that either one would break Blake down right now.

“I’m- I’m so alone here,” she admits. “I’ve never- I haven’t known how to-” Her voice cracks and she spills into the crevices like melting wax. 

Weiss’ thumb circles lightly against the back of her hand, a focus point to cling to. “The first step is always hardest. It’s okay to be scared, okay that you haven’t been able to take it yet, that you haven’t done it on your own. It’s easier to stay trapped when you’re alone. People like my father- like Adam- they know that. It’s part of what gives them power over us. But you aren’t alone, Blake.” 

\----

She waits three whole minutes after Adam leaves for work the next morning before she’s throwing the few meaningful possessions she owns into two cardboard boxes and stuffing her abysmal collection of clothes into a bag. Most of her clothes fit her poorly anymore, her body having shrunk under the pressing fear of Adam’s unpredictable temper but they’re all she has for now.

She texts Weiss to pull around to the front of her apartment building as she jots down the few contacts she cares about having from her phone. When Weiss texts that she’s outside, she deletes her text history and leaves her phone on the bed, unwilling to carry with her any extra risk of Adam tracking her down. 

The boxes are heavy in her arms, pages of books weighing her down, but the weight is a welcome reminder of muscles still willing to carry her. 

She doesn’t bother locking up on her way out.

She takes the stairs carefully on her way down, aware of her duffle bag trying to slide off her shoulder. It’s three flights to the ground but she doesn’t trust the elevator from trapping her, the universe conspiring against her escape, of Adam finding her in it with boxes and clothes — with her leaving in her arms. 

Her arms are heavy with the weight of the boxes and her bag, but despite the burning strain in her limbs, her chest feels swirling and lighter than it’s been in years, an empty hollow her heart rackets around within at a hundred miles a minute.

Every inch of her body is shaking, her ears perked, listening for a shout, some ominous moment where Adam will come shooting around the corner to grab her and keep her from escaping. 

Weiss’ car idles at the front of Blake’s apartment building like something holy. The second she sees Blake, the trunk springs open and she hops out to help Blake set boxes and bag inside. The sound of Weiss slamming the trunk closed rings in Blake’s ears like a toll of freedom.

Blake spares one last glance at the apartment building while Weiss gets back in the car. Her eyes skim across a window she’s looked out of for years like a prisoner. 

The second Blake closes the passenger side door behind her, perched safely within Weiss’ car, she hits the locks and shudders, slouches down to be as small and invisible as possible, strength pouring out of her like a sieve, only shivering nerves left inside. 

Weiss doesn’t look at her as she peels the car from the curb and drives them away, grip tight on the steering wheel and back straight and rigid. 

In the quiet of the car Blake can hear how hard she’s breathing, can feel her heart thrumming in her chest like a drum, can actually see her shirt lifting to its beat. 

“I’ll fucking run him over before I ever let him touch you again,” is all Weiss says despite how little Blake’s ever actually disclosed around Adam’s treatment.

She lets out a barked laugh before she crumbles, and her sobs don’t stop for a long time, out past city limits and ghosting fingers that evaporate from around her throat one by one.

She just might let Weiss run him over before letting Adam touch her again.

With every mile marker passed she feels a little more like this is real, that maybe she’s actually going to be safe again for the first time in 10 years. The thought breaks loose a new wave of sobs that last until Blake’s so dried up and exhausted she drifts off to sleep in the cool air of the car and the low hum of breaking free.

She dreams of running down an apartment hallway that stretches beyond escape, a hunter always hanging just a few steps behind her. 

She dreams of running to a car that won’t unlock in time before a hand grabs closes around her wrist. 

She dreams of a phone she doesn’t have blowing up with texts and outraged calls. 

She dreams of a bird in a gleaming cage with a wide-open door, veins of gold that don’t contain her, feeling terrified to fly out it, like it’s some trick, but on trembling wings takes the plunge anyway. 

She dreams of paths to freedom and wakes to find it. 

Vale is the most beautiful city she thinks she’s ever seen. 

\----

It’s been a week since Blake left Adam. The weight of it still sits swirling in disbelief within her stomach, a hallow thing she carries around with her everywhere, a new beginning. 

The weather has been kind to her, gifting her bright mornings to wake to and lengthening sunlit days that stretch out like long yawns, warm and as soft as the great fluffy clouds draped overhead like a quilt. 

The world is waking from winter, deep cold leeching away, and for the first time in years, Blake wants to join it. Spring’s liveliness has never felt so real.

Weiss has been her rock this last week, solid and steadfast, unwavering in the tide Blake feels wash around her as she tries to find her footing in the new equilibrium of her renewed Vale life. 

She’s awkward but thoughtful when she brings Ilia up to Blake, revealing, to Blake’s surprise, that they stayed in contact even after breaking up.

The name alone breathes a flame of guilt into Blake, a swallowing thing that eats at her when Weiss broaches the idea of Blake reaching out to her. It’s been years since she’s last talked to Ilia – their falling out spurred on by Ilia urging Blake to leave Adam shortly before they moved away from Vale. 

Blake had never imagined Ilia and Weiss were still friends after their breakup -Weiss seems even now still unwilling to talk about what happened between them- but in a place where everything feels primed toward rebirth, Blake finds her chest warm with the thought of renewing lost friendship. 

Ilia. A girl she had grown up with. 

A tiny piece of home recovered. Maybe. 

Blake feels nauseously nervous to text her, juggles her new phone in her palm for almost an hour before she actually brings herself to send a text. She’s not sure how to do this, how to reach out, to ask forgiveness for broken bridges, one of many Adam helped her burn. 

Ilia seems equally cautious and nervous in reply but willing to meet up, to talk in person and see what pieces of their ruin they could recover. 

They meet up at a coffee shop Blake remembers walking to between classes, one Ilia apparently now works at. She orders tea that she barely touches, too alive with shaking nerves, quivering guilt, and slick shame that bubbles in her stomach.

They walk a little ways to Beacon University’s sprawling campus close by, find a spot near a fountain and pry up their past. Blake’s throat feels clogged, but she climbs its ridges and outs secrets she’s kept buried since she was fourteen, offers explanations she feels Ilia is owed. 

She’s the first person to hear them, the only one so far. 

She hugs Blake so tightly when they get ready to leave that Blake thinks she might break all over again under the weight of forgiveness and letting go. It’s a peace she has rarely been given before, never felt ready to receive. That day she tries. 

Ilia calls her the next day with the prospect of a job, an opening at the coffee shop, another olive branch Blake doesn’t deserve. If she hadn’t been desperate to make progress, show Weiss she won’t be freeloading for long, she would’ve declined, the offer tasting far too much like pity. 

Weiss argues not to be a dumbass when Blake voices the worry to her. 

“Ilia is kind, and genuine, and cares about you. She happens to be trying to help you. It’s not about pity, Blake. You have got to learn to let your friends be good to you.” 

It stings bittersweet like truth. 

Swallowing pride, she applies and gets the job. 

After her first day training at the coffee shop, Weiss sits across from her at the dining room table in her apartment, brewing with an obvious air of hesitance. 

“I want you to remember what I said about your friends looking out you. And don’t think at all that I’m trying to get rid of you – my couch is yours as long as you need or want it.” Weiss pauses like she’s waiting for a reply or maybe trying to measure Blake’s response so far. 

“Okay?” Blake says slowly, prodding. 

“I have a friend who’s fixing up her house and she has a couple of extra rooms. I asked if she’d be willing to rent one of them out to a friend and she sounded amenable.” 

The thought of uprooting what tiny peace of a new life she’s formed here feels unsettling but she knows she can’t stay on Weiss’ couch forever. She was going to start looking for another living space soon anyway, but her chest feels tight and heart heavy at the idea of shifting pieces all around her so soon. 

“Can I think about it for bit? Maybe until this training week at the coffee shop is over?” 

“Of course. No rush.” 

She ends up regularly working afternoon and morning shifts with an astoundingly cheerful boy named Sun. Like waning winter sunrises, it takes her some time to warm up to him, though her lukewarm reception doesn’t seem to deter his outgoingly friendly personality. 

On their third shift together, he mentions in passing that he’s selling his old car. It’s a pretty ancient vehicle, well-worn and well-loved, that squeals a little when he starts it, but it runs well enough to get from point A to point B in one piece.

Blake longs to sever her reliance on her friends’ favors and unearned kindnesses, all too aware of Weiss’ car keys burning a hole in her pocket, allotted to her during her shift until she was free to pick Weiss up from her campus’ library. 

With Weiss’ unwavering refusal to accept any form of offered rent from Blake, she has enough money saved to buy the car from Sun, a measly savings account she had managed to keep hidden from Adam over the past year serving to free her further. 

Sun’s bright and eager explanations of all his old car’s quirks further melts Blake’s cool indifference toward him, his affection for the “grandmotherly” car (his word, not hers) hangs obvious in his tone. When he tells her he’s glad to know it’ll be in good hands, Blake can’t help her fading first impression of him. 

With a solid piece of something that’s truly hers now in her possession, she begrudgingly agrees to Weiss’ gentle but insistent encouragement toward giving her friend Yang’s spare room consideration. She can’t well refuse her friend’s effort to look after her and yields to her own desire to get out of Weiss’ hair as soon as possible, regardless of her friend’s assurance that her crashing there is no problem.

\----

A golden retriever meets her at the front door, excited tail swishing and front paws dancing even as it stays sitting, visibly trembling like it’s fighting against all instinct to jump up. 

“You must be Blake,” a tall, blonde woman with a ready smile and shining lilac eyes greets her. The sleeves of her orange hoodie are missing, and her jeans are worn and decorated with many colorful, long-dried stripes of paint streaks in the shape of wiped-off fingers. She looks comfortable, at home and sturdy leaning against the door. And beautiful, like unfairly beautiful. Enough to leave Blake staring for a moment before snapping back to herself. 

“And you must be Yang,” Blake says back, feels her nerves shake and shiver in her hands but musters a small smile and glances again to the patient dog who whines but stays put, staring at her. 

“And this vibrating furball is Bumblebee,” Yang says with a warmth in her voice that’s unmistakable as she crouches down beside the dog and scrunches her hands through soft locks of fur. One of Yang’s arms shines, metallic and yellow from above the elbow down. “She’s excitable as all get-out but a total softie. You aren’t allergic, are you?” 

Yang’s rich blonde mane beside Bumblebee’s golden waves of fur makes Blake think of walking pairs of sunlight. 

“No, no worries.” Blake reaches out a timid hand to pat the dog on the head. She’s never been much of a dog person, preferring the independent spirit of cats, but Bumblebee seems alright all things considered. She receives a quick lop of dog tongue on her hand for her efforts and she stifles a quick grimace. 

Yang’s beaming smile toward Bumblebee helps stave off Blake’s discomfort. When it’s turned up at her, she swallows and looks away, feeling a hint of a burn in her cheeks at being caught staring. Her hands worry the strap of her bag for something to hold onto. She shifts her weight from one boot to the other. 

An awkward silence threatens at the edge of Blake’s nerves but Yang stands fluidly and interrupts it before it can settle in. 

“So I don't know what Weiss told you, but fair warning, this whole place is a bit of a work in progress.” Yang’s eyes skim sharply over the living room like an appraisal and Blake allows herself to take it in with her. 

Her first impression is _dark_.

The carpet is a heavy russet brown, a deeper shade than the dark tan walls that do little to brighten the mood. The living room is devoid of furniture, besides a dog bed in the corner streaked with loose fur, but past where they stand by the front door Blake can see a long dining room table standing littered with tools, some Blake can put names to and others she’s unfamiliar with. 

“I plan to take up this carpet at some point but it’s a ways down the list still. The brown walls have got to go ASAP though – they’re so dreary I feel like I’m living in a cave.” 

“What color are you thinking?” Blake asks, pushing conversation.

“I’m not sure yet. Maybe you can help me pick one out.” 

The offer catches Blake off guard, the askance for input, a welcoming of her voice. It feels like a reverb in the echo chamber hollowness Adam carved out in demanding her silence. 

“Okay,” is all Blake can muster from the wonder in her chest. The openness in Yang, the welcoming that pours out of her, leaves Blake reeling, treading water. 

“Through here’s the dining room,” Yang says, leading them on with a pointing hand, guiding them away from the door. Bumblebee follows a few steps beside her and Yang’s hand slides along her head, stroking an ear, seeming absent and automatic in the movement.

Blake pries her steps from the floor on fleeting feet, curious to hear the rest of Yang’s exploration of the house.

“This old laminate floor will come up at the same time as the carpet and,” she steps into the kitchen, a hovel somehow gloomier than the living room, bathed in dark red walls, “both these walls are gonna come down.” She motions to the walls that separate the kitchen from the dining room and living room. 

“You’re going to tear down walls?” Blake asks in disbelief, glancing over Yang again, seeing the wrap of muscles on her arms and shoulders in a new light. “Is that safe?”

“We’ve already double-checked that they aren’t load-bearing, so it’s safe. This kitchen is way too tight with them here and an open floor plan will work so much better. If you’re staying here when I start on them, I’ll let you give me a hand tearing them down.” Her eager grin and excited tone leaves Blake with the impression Yang views this offer as a gracious gift. 

“You’re very trusting,” Blake says in wonder, head tilting and a smile tugging at her inside and out. 

Yang shrugs with a smile of her own. “Weiss’ judgement in friends is as good as her judgement in dating is bad. If she trusts you, that’s good enough for me.” An amused smile brims on Blake’s lips. “Plus, Bee seems to like you and that’s the highest praise someone can get in my book.” 

Bumblebee is sitting beside Blake, head upturned toward her and tail swishing lazily. Blake thinks of Adam’s hatred of dogs and pets Bee’s head again. The quick flick of a tongue this time doesn’t bother her as much as before. 

Yang trails them down the hallway next, opening a door on the left at the end. 

“And this would be your room.”

It’s bigger than she expects, modest still but about the same size as the bedroom Blake grew up in at her parents’ house.

The walls are the same drab mud color as the living room that makes the whole place feel smaller and darker than it is. It’s a corner bedroom and with windows on both the outer walls that would let in plenty of natural light if the sun wasn’t already setting over the backyard fence behind them.

With a little paint and some personal effects, it’ll be perfect.

Yang is leaning against the doorway watching her, hands tucked in her jean pockets and a gentle smile on her lips. “It’s not huge or anything but the closet is a decent size and it has more windows than the other guest bedroom.”

“I like it, assuming you’re leaving all the walls in here standing,” she teases lightly, sees it lilt a smile off Yang’s lips and a shake ‘no’ from her head. “I’ll definitely be eager to paint but it’s got plenty of room to breathe.” Blake takes a breath at the thought and feels her chest brim with something like hope. 

Yang lights up at her appraisal and Blake smiles a little back, ready any moment now for the other shoe to drop with this whole thing. There’s no way it could be this simple. Things never are.

“Let’s go talk specifics,” Yang says with a jerk of her head back down the hall as if she read Blake’s mind.

She braces herself and follows behind Yang to the makeshift dining room table cluttered with tools and a thin layer of dust.

Once they’re both settled into seats opposite one another, Yang jumps right in, one arm slung over the back of her chair and the other resting on the knee pulled up in her seat.

“So here’s the deal, Blake. Weiss didn’t mention specifics, but she alluded that you were in a bit of a bind and need a place to stay until you can get your feet back under you.” Blake stomach curls in on itself but she nods, feeling numb. Yang only gives a solid nod back, as if to say she won’t push for an explanation. She’s grateful Weiss stayed vague in her disclosures.

“I hadn’t exactly anticipated taking on a roommate while I’m working here but a couple extra bucks in the bank never hurts. However, I’m aware this place is far from perfect, and staying here while I renovate isn’t going to be rainbows and sunshine. I can say from experience that living in a construction zone can be really stressful. I’m not sure what you’ve got going on, but I wouldn’t want to end up causing you more harm than good by subjecting you to this place while I fix it up.”

“Honestly all I really need is a safe place I can sleep at night. I can stay out of your hair otherwise.” Blake trails a finger through the dust on the table, can’t meet Yang’s eye, feels small and in the way already.

“Oh, I’m not worried about you being around. Honestly, a little company would be really great. I’m far more worried about all the noise and dust and tools everywhere bothering you. I want you to know what you’re signing up for here before you jump in. Other than painting and a new light fixture, your room is in good shape. But everywhere else in this house is gonna get some TLC and that can be pretty overwhelming at times to live with.”

Blake only nods and continues to trace a simple outline of a house in the dust on the tabletop.

“Right, well, the good news then is because of all the hassles, I’m not looking for much in the way of rent. Ⱡ250 is all I feel comfortable asking for honestly.”

Blake’s head snaps up at that, eyes blown wide and jaw dropping a little. “You can’t be serious.” Yang only shrugs. “I’m not looking for charity,” Blake says defensively under knitted brows, narrowed eyes, and a deep frown, but her voice is hardly firm in her drawing disbelief.

“Neither am I. Look, I’d be taking advantage if I asked for more. If it’d make you feel better, you can give me a hand around here when you have some free time.”

“But I don’t know anything about renovating houses,” Blake splutters.

“Neither did I until my dad showed me. I won’t ask you to do anything dangerous or too complicated. Honestly just an extra pair of hands alone goes a long way on projects like this.”

She can’t shake feeling like it’s a horrible idea but draws out a long breath and answers “Okay” anyway.

Yang grins at her and Blake wonders what exactly she’s getting herself into.

\----

“She said yes?” Weiss’s voice sounds incredulous through the phone.

“Mhmmm,” Yang hums, kicking the fridge closed a little awkwardly behind her, hands full of vegetables for her stir fry and phone pinched between her shoulder and ear. “What, did you expect her not to?”

“Honestly, yeah.”

“Why?” The phone slips and Yang barely catches it between a stalk of broccoli and carrots.

“Because, she’s insufferably stubborn and I was hardly able to even convince her to go look at your place.”

“Ah,” is all Yang offers as she grabs a knife and cutting board from the dishwasher.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy she said yes. Just surprised is all.”

“Honestly, Weiss, your continuous lack of faith in my irresistible charm is more than a little hurtful at this point.”

“You know, Yang, if you aren’t careful, you may have to raise the ceilings in that shithole to accommodate your big head.”

“Only if you stopped keeping me humble.”

“A more difficult task than renovating that whole house.”

“If I didn’t think you’d hurt yourself, I’d offer to trade.”

“Oh please, like you could ever keep yourself humble.”

Yang only grins into the receiver and wonders how a conversation can feel more like home than any place she’s ever lived.

\----

Moving in is an understated affair. She doesn’t have much stuff to her name, for both personal and Adam-related reasons, and the few boxes she does have all fit neatly into her car. Yang had offered to let her use the mattress and bed frame she had set up in the guest room and after a stubborn back and forth, she accepted.

She thanks Weiss profusely for the place to stay in the in-between and a short drive later, she’s pulling into the driveway of 1306 Stonehaven Circle. Yang’s faded yellow truck is in the driveway and Blake pulls to park beside it.

It’s the warmest morning they’ve had all month, the first true promise of spring hanging heavy in Blake’s lungs and she greedily drinks in the clean air, knowing pollen and allergies won’t be far away. She presses hope between her ribs like petals between pages and thinks of new beginnings, of growth.

All the windows this side of the house are flung open, beckoning in clean, fresh air and Blake along with it.

She grabs a box from her passenger seat, winds around Yang’s truck and up the two steps to the side door. The screen door is closed but the hardwood door stands wide open to catch more air and let sunlight inside. Beyond the threshold Blake can hear music playing from the back of the house.

She pauses as she reaches to open the door and wonders if she should’ve called Yang to let her know she was on her way over, but the heavy box of books in her arms settles her hesitance for her. Brushing past what-ifs and anxious static, she treads inside, sights set on the large table to lighten her burden, never mind the dust.

Bumblebee comes trotting down the hallway to greet her, tags on her collar jingling.

“Yang?” Blake calls out loudly as she sets the box down. She starts toward the hallway trying to announce herself so as not to alarm her or get hit by a hammer if Yang mistook her for an intruder. Bumblebee follows her. “Yang?”

The music pauses and Yang’s bright burst of yellow hair pops out from the doorway to Blake’s room.

“Hey! I thought I heard something out here.” Green flannel sleeves are rolled up to Yang’s elbows, unbuttoned over a grey tanktop and torn up jeans that hang a little loose on her. “I’m just finishing up with your new fan so I won’t have to get in here after you’ve settled in. Actually, could you give me a hand with it?” Yang ducks back into Blake’s room without waiting for an answer.

“Uh, sure, I guess,” Blake says automatically over a stab of trepidation, creeps down the hall after Yang. “I don’t know what I’m doing though so don’t blame me if it falls in the middle of the night.”

Yang laughs and spares her a wide smile over her shoulder, her back to Blake as she’s already a couple steps up a ladder. A black fan is sitting on the floor by the ladder, looking larger up close than it would on the ceiling.

“Don’t worry, I’m to blame if it falls – though it won’t, I swear! I just need you to hand it to me while I’m up here.” She turns back to a set of multiple, colored wires sticking out of a hole in the ceiling.

As Blake steps closer she can see a metal box recessed in the hole, sprouting the wires, and a small black frame secured under it, flush against the ceiling. Yang is twisting wires from the box to similarly color-coded wires coming out of a small grey device that looks a bit like a remote. Blake has no idea what she’s looking at. 

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” slips out before Blake thinks better of it.

Yang shoots her a bright, cocky smirk, a simmering glint of amusement in her eyes. “Love the vote of confidence there, Belladonna.” Blake flushes, wishes for the words back despite Yang’s teasing tone. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t confident. I’ve been rewiring fixtures with my dad since I was ten.”

“How many times have you been shocked?” Blake can’t help the wry smile she tries to hide.

“Ouch, you really know how to do a number on someone’s ego, don’t ya? I’ve been shocked twice, if you must know. Once because Ruby flipped the wrong breaker, and once while I was adjusting a live light switch with a screwdriver like a dumbass. I was fourteen though, so I think we’re both safe.”

“Who’s Ruby? Were you hurt?”

“My little sister. And nah, it was just a little zap. Scared me more than hurt. Good way to learn not to fuck around with electrical shit though.”

She’s paired off the like-colored wires from the box and the remote and twisted little yellow caps over each pair. She makes quick work of wrapping the caps with black tape she produces from a jean pocket and then stuffs all the wires up into the recessed metal box. They fit after some effort and barely stay put as Yang slides the remote thing into a slot on the black frame, keeping the wires from falling back out.

“Okay, all set. Hand me the fan.”

Blake takes a breath and steps up to the fan between the blades, not sure exactly how she should pick it up. She settles on grabbing the rod at the top of the fan and presses a hand to the bottom face of it as she lifts. Yang’s turned around on the ladder to take the fixture from her. Her posture is relaxed but the way she leans so casually on the ladder makes Blake nervous.

The function of the black frame becomes clear as Yang hoists the fan’s rod into place, settling the sphere at the end of the rod into the frame under the remote thing. It’s a brace to suspend the fan and Blake wonders if –hopes– something more will be added to make it look less shoddy and bare.

The question is answered for her though when Yang fits a tiny plug from the fan into a slot in the remote and lifts a domed metal sleeve up from the base of the rod and settles it in place around the entire black bracket. She screws it in place and slides another cover piece up to hide the screw holes, twisting it into place, where it stays, sleek and seamless.

Blake can’t help but admit, it looks nice. Nicer than any fan she’s had before, and stops herself at that thought, feeling silly to be so taken with a fan.

“What do you think?” Yang asks, sounding genuine, as she climbs down off the ladder.

“Not bad,” Blake offers, a tiny smile gripping the corners of her lips. “The real test will be if it turns on without exploding.”

“Yeah, yeah, miss hardass. You’re quite the critic, aren’t you?” The reward of Yang’s amused grin does nothing to deter Blake’s critiques.

“I didn’t realize basic safety concerns were considered high standards.”

“They’re not – which really just shows how little faith you have in me. My standards are in fact quite high, thank you very much.”

“In my defense, you haven’t given me any reason yet to have faith. Seeing is believing, Yang, and I don’t see any light in here yet.”

“My gods, you’re demanding. Not even a simple thank you,” she grumbles in an exaggerated tone as she brushes past Blake and into the master bedroom across the hall.

She disappears into the master bathroom and then a sturdy _chnk _sounds off from where she went. A moment later she reappears, strutting confidently into Blake’s room, and flicks the light switch on. Blake braces for the worst (an explosion, a cloud of smoke, a crackle of sparks), something Yang doesn’t seem to miss, but instead watches as the light comes on, fading in quickly from dim to bright.

“Apologies can be formally issued to Xiao Long Contracting Incorporated,” Yang says with a shit-eating grin, arms crossed as she leans against the doorframe.

“Okay, okay, I’ll admit it looks great. And not bursting into flames is really working for it.”

Yang ignores the jab and flips the switch off and back on. “I really love the fade in, too. It’s a sexy fan. I’m thinking I’m going put this same model in place of all the other fans in the house. They’re so off balance they’re drive me crazy.”

Blake’s never thought of a fan as sexy before but with the conviction in Yang’s voice and her persistent, sunlit grin, Yang might just make a believer out of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading if you’ve made it this far! I haven’t published fanfiction in years but Bumbleby is so tender and the fandom around these girls so enthusiastic that it pushed me to dive back into writing fanfic (so thanks for that).  
I’m not sure when the next chapter will be ready (school starts back for me tomorrow so probably not super soon) but I do already have some pieces of other chapters written for this story (as well as a couple other short stories I’ll probably post as I work on this one).  

> 
> Comments? Questions? Rude remarks? Drop me a line below to share your thoughts.


	2. restless nights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for being patient, guys. hope you enjoy this chapter as much as the first one. (went ahead and drew up a rough floor plan since some of you said having one would help- https://ibb.co/5G1bj2h )

Sleeping is a miserable affair the first few nights in the new house. Sleeping somewhere new has always been hard for Blake but her circumstances aren’t making things any easier.

The bed feels too big to have all to herself and early-spring cold leaves her curled up drowning in covers, warm enough wrapped within them but tossing anyway in the emptiness. It’s the first time in years she’s had a bed to herself with no body heat to share or someone to curl against when she turns over in the night.

It’s a hard pill to swallow when she starts dusting off moments of missing Adam, a feeling that leaves this horrible taste on the back of her tongue. A guilty ache takes root in her chest, a sense of stupidity warring against self-worth as she wrangles uprisings and tries to pin down explanations, desperate efforts to justify.

Admittedly, it’s not entirely surprising to miss bits and pieces a life she’s left behind – who she was before, years with Adam, the twined life they had been building together. He was such a huge part of her story day in and day out since she was 14, wide-eyed and awed by his charismatic presence and fiery ambitions. She shouldn’t be so caught off guard to realize the ripples he left behind are bleeding through.

The absence of him is bound to leave some kind of void. She shouldn’t be so startled to find herself missing someone she’s known since she was a child, someone she built a life beside for so many years. She shouldn’t be as shocked as she is. And still – the spaces between being okay spool out in unexpected moments, catch her so off guard she can hardly breathe when they hook through her, pull her up short and shouting. 

She wishes moving on turned out to be as easy as just leaving – even as hard as that had been. Why couldn’t leaving be all it took to set things right inside her head again? The hardest part was supposed to be behind her, the intrusion in her life removed, healing now all that’s left to claim. 

But instead she finds herself swallowed by mixed up feelings – an utterly brilliant relief of escape competing viciously with the sorry ache of somehow missing him at the same time.

It feels so incredibly sick, twisted and haunting and horrible. Blake isn’t sure how to cope with it. 

While there’s nothing in her wanting to go back, no regret for getting out – for _ finally _ getting out – there are still these fractured parts of herself she’s left trying to pick up and piece back together after breaking away from someone so tangled up in her own growth.

So thoughts of Adam start hitting like a coin toss, neither side a winning sight, heads and tails mocking her every time it lands. 

Heads. He comes to mind like the taste of a nail through her tongue, rusty and invasive, a remembrance of all the reasons it was right to leave. These moments swirl like cyclones, try to drag her down and drown her, leave her gasping to ground herself, shaking and shaken but in one piece able to regroup. 

Tails. So much worse. The moments when he floats to mind on sweet memories turned bitter. The sick seconds wrapped in sour recall of these fading good bits she had with him, the times not ruled by anger or manipulation, light middle ground they shared that seemed to exist outside of time, outside of bated breaths and fragile fear. 

It’s hard to believe, to accept or acknowledge, that it wasn’t all bad. Wasn’t bad all the time. Maybe it would’ve been better if it had been. Maybe she would’ve gotten out sooner if there were never gentle moments of soft respite strung up carefully between creeping moments of bruising grips, of jealous outbursts and callous condescension, of punched walls or a hand around her neck. 

Maybe it would’ve been better if it had been worse. Maybe she would’ve been smarter about it, faster to get out. Maybe even now it would be easier to move on. 

It’s a swarm of thoughts that leave her drowning to breathe past. 

Because all of Adam’s good moments had been handholds to keep her hanging on. Fleeting moments between them that made her clutch to something long past its expiration date, long past hazard signs and cliff dives, long past any kind of safety. 

Even when things were bad enough to leave over, they were somehow also good enough to stay for. Just barely. For so long.

Until Blake’s forgiveness wore out, rubbed raw and frayed and ready to give way. 

Until Weiss flashed her a glimmer of breaking free and she reached toward her snapping point, long overdue. 

And fuck, that sweet relief of fleeing dread, of easy breathing, of an empty bed. 

As hollow and swallowing and uneasy as it feels to sleep alone, it also sits as a constant reminder of getting out, proof of escape, even on cold nights (especially on cold nights). The new tastes as sweet on the back of her tongue as her past tastes bitter.

All these rotting memories of laughing together, of inside jokes and shared history, now feel like betrayals. Like backtracking. Like hunting for a needle of sanity in a haystack of gaslighting. Recall of these stupid dreams they shared – of plans for their future, of goals they once mapped out together – burn like coals caught in her throat, singe like cinders that won’t snuff out no matter how she chokes them down. 

She fights nausea and nonsense that come hand in hand with trails of memories that lead nowhere good. They surge through her like flashpaper, leave the taste of ash behind and an afterimage to blind. Some days she wishes she might burn up with them. 

It feels like a burden only she can bear, unsure how to confide in anyone else that she misses her abuser. How could she explain that without sounding crazy? Especially when she’s just as relieved to be away from him.

It’s a trembling tightrope she plucks along each day. She’s never been more afraid of heights. 

She’s never felt more alone.

There’s a boiling under her skin Yang doesn’t seem to notice as she winds herself constantly around Blake. This haunting in her head clashes defiantly with Yang’s presence, rabid and backed into a corner by this girl that threatens to unhinge her ghosts. 

It’s both comforting and disconcerting. This firecracker of a person as charismatic as she is careless, a relieving weight to pit against Blake’s constant overthinking. 

Yang, full of bright optimism and excited boldness, who crosses lines Blake hadn’t realized she had drawn. Yang, who beats back Blake’s past without even realizing she’s in a fight. 

Blake quickly catches on that personal space is fair game to Yang, physical affection apparently a given in her company. It’s not something Blake is used to but Yang’s natural air about it is too smooth to contest with, sliding easily through Blake’s usual defenses and saddling comfortably against her new norm – just another tally on the list of other adjustments she’s been making.

It’s manageable, if unexpected. 

But Blake’s nothing if not readily adaptable. Years of navigating treacherous tempers and people’s suspicions have built her to this point of easy accommodation. It’s second nature to her by now, a skin she slides into without a second thought.

Despite hers and Yang’s many differences, living together settles into a rhythm with surprisingly little commotion, even with schedules that don’t readily fit together and dispositions that naturally oppose the other’s habits. Their opposites seem to balance each other out in a relieving way, though points of contention still strike like cracks of thunder in an otherwise temperate house. 

While the renovation project is in full swing, Yang has also been working part-time on some sorts of carpentry commissions with her dad. (Blake’s hasn’t asked for details about it, afraid to get Yang started on the subject since she has a habit of gushing about construction stuff that goes way over Blake’s head.) 

Blessedly, it means Blake has the house to herself for a few hours a couple evenings a week. Yang usually comes home smelling like sawdust or varnish in time to make dinner for them both. It’s odd but also wonderful. 

It takes some loosening up for Blake to make peace with someone helping to take care of her, but she can’t deny loving all the home cooked meals that Yang makes. Even if she only lets Blake help cut vegetables anymore, won’t let her near any real heat source after the first night. 

She’s allowed to stir pots and pans only when Yang has to step briefly away, but even that seems to worry Yang - due both to Yang’s annoying perfectionism and Blake’s uncanny ability to burn almost anything in record time. 

She’s barely able to use the microwave without catching a spare teasing comment from Yang.

Outside of consistent meals with another person and lint-rolling her clothes to rid them of dog hair, her daily routine hasn’t changed much on account of her new home. 

With possibly one – major – exception. 

Yang’s sunny disposition left Blake, naively, assuming she would be a morning person, her bright attitude striking as more fit for sunrises than late nights. And while Blake herself wasn’t truly a morning person, she’s spent enough years forcing herself to get up early that doing otherwise now feels unnatural (however grumpy and nonverbal she continues to be most mornings).

There are certain preferences she holds close after years of routine having settled into her bones. Waking early started as a stapled-together effort to ward off depression, but the practice made a home of her skin, curling around her like armor, like safety. She’s used to quiet nights and noisy mornings, a crest of waves to float within at sunrise rather than crashing ones at sunset. This struggle against personal ghosts goes toe-to-toe with the less familiar struggle of living with a stranger.

Blake’s preference for quiet and calm is challenged constantly by Yang’s affinity for noise making, a firework of a person if Blake’s ever met one, dazzling and showy and _ stupidly _loud. 

Constantly.

Her nights are as loud as her days are, noise like a cloak against loneliness she seems to wrap herself in. Music or games or a clattering of dishes are a symphony she conducts like the house is her audience, company in solitude. Blake’s pillows over her ears only cuts so much of the racket.

Abysmally, Yang’s settling down for the night sits far too close to Blake’s risings. The first few nights Blake’s phone brightly shines a.m. hours ticking away before exhaustion manages to drag her under the horizon of consciousness, Yang’s muffled noises finally drowned out by insulating sleep.

The fourth night in the new house is especially awful. 

Her opening shift the next morning means her lack of sleep tonight will take an extra toll later but no matter how she tosses and turns she can’t seem to doze off. The bed itself is comfortable but still feels too big and no matter how many times she adjusts her pillow she can’t settle down. Agitation builds the longer she lays awake, exhausted frustration grating against every little thing.

Not to mention the noise. 

Always the noise.

Yang was thoughtful enough to ask Blake before she went to bed if she could get some house work done so long as she tries to keep things quiet. Blake was proud of her for at least asking, hopeful at the concept of Yang aiming for quiet. 

She’s still not sure why she said yes, though. 

It doesn’t take long to realize Yang’s definition of the word quiet and a normal person’s version of it are two very different things. 

Admittedly, the rhythmic scraping of Yang’s drywall knife against the ceiling isn’t horrendously loud compared to something like sawing or hammering (or even the clacking of dishes Blake’s come to expect) but it’s a far cry from quiet, even in Blake’s room, down the hall and behind a closed door.

But it’s been hours. Surely Yang will tire out soon and call it quits. Surely she won’t go on like this all night. 

Surely Blake should have learned by now not to be so naive to assume so. 

By the start of the third hour Blake yanks back her covers and tries not to stomp as she walks down the hall. 

“Yang,” she sighs loudly, squinting into the bright living room. 

Perched halfway up a stepladder, Yang bobs her head and taps a foot on her step, earbuds in and cord swinging as she dances, miraculously maintaining her balance. There’s a layer of popcorn ceiling scattered over the carpet like snow, marking Yang’s progress across the room, her hours of scraping, Blake’s growing annoyance. 

“Yang,” she tries a little louder. 

Yang continues her dancing, unaware and scraping. Blake huffs as she stalks over to the ladder, steering clear of falling debris. 

“Yang!” 

Her hand on Yang’s calf is what does it, sends Yang jerking and tumbling off the ladder in a whirlwind of limbs, narrowly missing either of them with the scraper in her hand. Blake barely manages to get a firm enough grip on Yang’s arm to keep her from hitting the floor. 

“Jesus, Blake. You scared the shit out of me.” Regaining her balance, she tugs her earbuds out and puts a hand to her chest, her breath a little ragged. “Everything okay? I thought you were sleeping.”

“I was trying to but the scraping is a little loud,” Blake hints with a frown, crossing her arms defensively as she casts an eye around the white crumbles fanning out from the ladder. 

“Oh shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was too much.” Yang drags a hand through her hair, doesn’t seem to realize it leaves a streak of dust in its tracks. "My bad."

“It’s fine. I just have to get up early tomorrow and was hoping you could wrap it up for tonight.”

“Yeah, no worries.” 

It’s as simple as that with Yang, who doesn’t hesitate a moment before turning to fold up the ladder. 

“Thanks,” Blake sighs, feels the tension in her shoulders start to unwind. 

“I guess it’d be a pretty bad joke to run the vacuum in a minute when you go back to bed?” Yang grins, eyeing the popcorn ceiling littered over the floor. 

“Only if you want Bumblebee to still have a mom in the morning,” Blake replies dryly but her lips twitch and there’s a shadow of amusement at Yang’s quip. 

She raises her hands defensively. “Okay, no bad jokes. At least not when you’re sleep deprived.” She adds a wink and another grin.

Blake snorts and rolls her eyes. “Goodnight, Yang.”

“Night, Blake.” 

It feels far too familiar already, easy and light as she closes her bedroom door and crawls back into bed.

Somehow the quiet feels just as loud as the noise and it still takes hours for Blake to fall asleep. 

\----

Unsurprisingly, waking the following mornings is a miserable affair. Even after years of forcing herself to get up early, prying herself from bed take tremendous effort. 

The warmth of her blankets begs her back to sleep but she forces herself to shed them, groggy and grumpy already. Climbing free takes precious energy she can’t afford to spare but she forces herself up all the same, rubbing sleep from her eyes as she does. Lethargy longs to drown her but she stretches as she stands and tries to shake it off. 

She doesn’t allow herself to linger, presses on into her new morning routine.

The coffee machine, lined with loose-leaf tea instead of coffee grounds, putters quietly in the only silent hours she suspects this house ever sees, a pulse of peace Blake clings to. She basks in it, drinks it in desperately, hums softly to herself as she grabs a mug from the ugly old cabinets in the gloomy red kitchen.

It’s her least favorite room in the house, not only because it’s small enough to make her feel caged again but because the walls are a red deep enough to leave her fighting warning signs.

She looks forward to the kitchen being remodeled, holds tight to what Yang said. That the red will go along with the walls separating it from the living room and dining room, a promise that they’ll open up the kitchen like a cracking shell. 

In the meantime, Blake tries to spend as little time here as possible, tries not to think of bruises and broken skin the color of the walls.

Her breakfast is a large cup of mint tea and toast. It’s threadbare and simple but Blake’s never been much of a fan of big breakfasts. This is easier to stomach, doesn’t weigh her down. 

Blake tries to ignore the dusting of dirt on the dining room table as she perches on a chair; she had wiped it down yesterday evening before dinner but Yang’s renovations seem as concerned with layering dust everywhere as they do with sprucing up the place.

She smiles a little when she hears a pattering of paws on the hall carpet, Bumblebee trotting out of Yang’s room at the call of quiet human noises she knows promises breakfast. Blake polishes off a piece of toast before scraping back her chair to scoop a cup of dog food into Bee’s bowl. They eat in a quiet morning together before Bee ducks out the dog door flap to the backyard. 

Blake dresses for work silently and stifles a yawn she knows will be the first of many today. Before she leaves for work, she scribbles a quick note she leaves on the container of Bumblebee’s food. “Fed Bee. See you after work.”

\----

The coffee shop is a perfect escape. It offers just enough hectic rush each morning or afternoon to keep Blake from idling into dangerous trains of thought, catching on pitfalls in her mind Adam left behind.

The shop’s tasteful drama doesn’t go unappreciated either.

Sun was the first one to tip her off to it, always a slut for sharing any good gossip (except for whatever the hell is going on with that blue-haired twink that comes in often enough even Blake has noticed Sun’s constant blush that follows).

Velvet, the shop’s morning manager, has an all-too-obvious crush on Coco, the resident hottie night manager who occupies the closing shifts and apparently all of Velvet’s frequent day-dreams. 

It’s entertaining enough to leave Blake turning away to hide smiles, enough to break her free from stoic thoughts to join in with her coworkers’ snickering as their two managers awkwardly try navigating their crushes every time Coco comes in early to work on the schedule.

It’s enough to leech stress from Blake’s shoulders, leave her casual and comfortable to share personal bounds of life she had long ago learned to keep quarantined.

“Oh fucking hell,” she groans under her breath late that morning after checking her phone. She slips it back into her back pocket and playfully shoulders Ilia on her way to grab the soy milk. “So apparently when I get off here I get to go home and help my roommate tear down some walls in our house.” 

Blake can’t help the urge to say it like some kind of drag, buries her own eager curiosity to see Yang reshape their house, rip out parts that Blake can’t wait to see go.

“Oh shit, no way,” Sun exclaims too loudly, earns a sharp glare from Velvet. 

If Coco wasn’t in the back, in earshot, Velvet probably would have ripped Sun a new one. Instead she’s quiet, playing a little cooler than she actually is, and Sun pretends not to notice her silent reprimand.

“That’s kind of cool though,” Ilia moderates, casts a quickly burrowed smile toward Sun and a sympathetic glance toward Velvet. “That’s gotta be kind of nice to have a roommate who’s improving your house. Most people deal with the opposite problem.”

The point isn’t lost on Blake, even if she won’t readily admit it to her coworkers. Her friends?

“I mean, sure it’s cool that the house is getting better rather than worse, but it’s kind of weird how casual Yang is about all of this. I mean, isn’t tearing down walls dangerous or something? I’m a little terrified the house is just going to collapse on us one of these days.”

With a lull in customers, Velvet leans against the back counter. The shift out of “manager-mode” is palpable to all of them.

“Not to be a party-pooper but has your roommate gotten permits for this stuff?” Velvet joins in. “I had an uncle who wanted to renovate his house but had to hire a contractor instead because of all the regulations.”

Blake falters a little at that. 

It wasn’t even something she had paused to consider. Yang just seemed so confident about it that Blake hadn’t thought to doubt her beyond teasing comments and some casually brushed-off worries. 

“Honestly, I haven’t even thought to ask. I have no clue if she’s doing this stuff above-board or not.” Blake busies herself with wiping down the espresso machine to give herself a moment to consider it. 

Yang absolutely seems chaotic enough to have not come within a mile within of a permit. The image of her dancing on the ladder last night brims to the surface. 

It’s something she makes a mental note to ask about, unsure how she’ll drop it in casually but is suddenly far more anxious about than she should be. What could even happen if Yang doesn’t have a permit?

Weiss wouldn’t have encouraged her to live with a fucking maniac, would she?

Would she?

She chews as hard on her anxiety as she does at the skin inside her cheek until the end of her shift. 

\----

When Blake gets home, Yang is nowhere to be seen despite her truck parked in the driveway. 

The living room ceiling has been completely scraped clean, only a scatter of divots left behind, and the carpet has been vacuumed free of debris. Freshly used pans sit idle on the stovetop, the smell of a late lunch still hanging in the air. Trailing deeper into the house to glance into Yang’s bedroom turns up no answers about her whereabouts either. 

“Yang?” Blake calls as she ducks back down the hallway. She sets a coffee she brought for Yang on the table - which has, thankfully, been freshly wiped down.

In a clatter, Bumblebee comes hurdling in through the dog door, panting hard and rushing up to greet Blake. She smiles at the enthusiasm and scratches Bee’s head as she walks toward the back door. 

On the other side, Yang beats her to it, making Blake jump as the door swings open before she can even reach for the doorknob. There’s a tennis ball in her free hand and a wide smile on her lips. Her shorts and t-shirt make Blake shiver on principle, the breeze outside still cool enough Blake hasn’t given up long sleeves. 

“Aha! You’re why Bee abandoned our game so suddenly.”

“Sorry.” The apology comes automatically and she backtracks to the cup of coffee as a peace offering. “Here, I brought you some coffee. I wasn’t sure what kind you might like but I figured something sweet was a safe bet. It’s mocha.”

“Aww thanks! You didn’t have to do that. Especially after I kept you up late last night.” Yang flashes her a guilty look but takes the coffee anyway, tipping her head back for a sip. There’s a thin sheen of sweat on her neck. 

“It’s fine,” Blake shrugs and turns away so she’s not staring.

“You hungry?” Yang asks over her shoulder as she slips into the kitchen, leaves her coffee on the table. 

Blake follows behind, watches as she jerks the fridge open and grabs a pitcher of water. Blake’s gut reaction is to tell her no, shy away from favors she might have to pay back, but the answer stalls on her lips at the hopeful look Yang shoots her when she glances past the fridge door. 

“I made cashew kung pao chicken.” She waves a tupperware container in the air to entice her. 

Blake’s sorry breakfast has long since worn off in her stomach and her mouth starts to water without permission. “Okay,” she breathes, and prays her stomach doesn’t start growling before she can sate it. 

Yang lights up and produces another container from the fridge, this one full of rice, which she hands over to Blake. Blake’s stomach betrays her with a loud growl as she heads for a plate and silverware to fork out a serving of rice. Yang laughs at the noise and surrenders the chicken as well, brushing against her as she grabs two cups from the cupboard. 

“How was work?” 

It still pulls her up a little short, the question something she’s not yet gotten used to someone genuinely asking, checking in for the sake of it, no ulterior motive hiding. 

“It was alright. Busy.” Blake tucks her plate into the microwave and turns around to address Yang with a grin. “I told my coworkers about tearing down the walls when I got off. They seem split between thinking you’re a badass and thinking you’re insane.” 

Yang scoffs. “That’s rude. Why can’t I be both?”

It earns her a snort and an eye roll. “That’s what I’m afraid of. My manager Velvet asked if you’re even allowed to be doing this stuff without a permit.” She leaves it hanging, not actually asked but hinted at, the doubt put on Velvet instead of herself. A shield against backlash it might draw from Yang. 

“Well no,” Yang admits with a grin as she pours them each water.

Wonderful. She _ is _living with a lunatic. 

Yang takes her time refilling the pitcher and tucking it back in the fridge before she continues. “You definitely need a permit when you tear down walls or if you plan to do any major electrical work.”

The loud beep of the microwave sounds behind Blake. She takes a moment to turn and busy herself snapping lids back on the chicken and rice containers, trying not to let Yang’s casualness about this get to her.

“Great. So I _ have _moved in with a crazy person after all,” she jokes, tries to sound light about it, doesn’t feel that way at all. 

Yang’s laugh is loud, like everything she does. “No, you haven’t. Well, not about that at least. I have all the permits I need for this work, I promise.”

Blake turns to judge if Yang is being honest or not, isn’t completely sure by what she finds. Her grin seems innocent but Blake doesn’t trust it. Yang clears her throat like she’s swallowing another laugh, holds up her hands in surrender.

“I probably should have mentioned already that I’m a licensed general contractor. And as a bonus, my dad is qualified to issue building permits. I can grab the papers for you if you want to look them over,” Yang says with a thumb jabbed over her shoulder in the direction of her room.

Oh. 

The confession is both settling and terrifying. She can’t quite picture Yang in charge of “real” renovation projects, actually being hired by someone else to do them. 

“Well that’s certainly comforting,” Blake says slowly, as she returns containers to the fridge. “Now I’m only fifty percent terrified you’re gonna pull the house down on our heads,” she jibes, trying to cover her tracks. 

Yang laughs as Blake leaves the kitchen, quietly desperate to escape the red room. Yang follows not far behind carrying glasses of water and a dazzling smile. She sets one of the glasses in front of Blake before pulling up a chair beside her. 

“I hope by the time this house is done you’ll have a little more faith in me than that.”

“Play your cards right and you might make it to seventy-five percent by the time we’re done with the walls today.”

“Awesome, I love a challenge.” 

Yang sits with her as she eats lunch, juggles between her cool cup of water and the warm mocha Blake brought her. Bumblebee settles down at their feet, half under the table, content to keep them company without begging Blake for her food. She might be the best behaved dog Blake’s ever met. 

“You know I really didn’t peg you as such a stickler for rules,” Yang says after a moment, mouth wrapped around the lip of her coffee cup. Her voice makes Blake sure she’s hiding a smile.

“You can’t honestly expect me to just blindly trust you to tear down walls in our house without wanting to doubt check that that’s not something completely insane to do,” Blake defends, trying not to feel foolish for asking. It wasn’t a dumb worry to voice. She’s watched HGTV. She knows what a load-bearing wall is.

\----

Blake doesn’t seem to catch that she’s called it their house, that she’s vocally laid claim to common ground. It’s a step Yang can’t keep herself from wrapping around like an achievement. Something earned. Something special. 

With how worried Blake seemed before about being in the way, hesitant about taking up shared spaces, she basks in the shift toward Blake letting herself be comfortable here. She can’t help but tuck the knowledge away for safekeeping. She stops herself from teasing Blake about it.

“No, you’re not wrong. I just didn’t expect it, is all.”

“Yeah well, I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

“No, you’re right,” Yang agrees and hides a smile that begs to be set free as a thought occurs to her. Oh, she’s got the perfect way to tease Blake mercilessly for this. “Safe is always better than sorry.” It’s true, but the silly amusement Yang feels brewing contests with her efforts to sound sincere.

Blake side-eyes her skeptically but shrugs and lets it go.

She waits for Blake to finish the last few bites of her lunch, happy to see her obviously enjoying it. Yang had made sure to make more than enough for multiple servings, hopeful Blake would be willing to eat something filling when she got home. 

It isn’t lost on Yang how hollow Blake looks, thin like she’s been trying to disappear. The way she often stands even smaller still like she’s trying not to be seen.

Yang breaks away from the thought with a clenched jaw, tries not to let herself linger on what’s brought Blake to this point. She could hazard a few guesses, troubling thoughts she tries to wring out of her mind. She doesn’t need to go digging, and Blake hardly strikes her as eager to share.

“_ Sooo _, you ready to tear down a couple walls now that I’ve put your mind at ease?” Yang’s voice doesn’t betray the line of thought she shakes off.

She herself couldn’t be more ready to get started on this bit of demo. The cramped walls have been an eyesore from the moment she first laid eyes on them and this is a moment of reckoning many weeks in the making by now. 

“I guess.”

She can’t guilt Blake’s obvious hesitance but hopes the somewhat childish joy Yang usually feels during demo projects makes an appearance in Blake as well. The thought of this woman showing anything but the tight restraint she walks around in is something Yang is dying to see.

“Perfect! Just the enthusiasm I was looking for.” Yang slathers on the sarcasm generously, the better to put Blake at ease. “Let me go flip the breaker and grab our safety gear and we’ll get started.”

Blake seems to gather herself at the thought, dragging her dishes from the table and trailing back into the kitchen.

“Oh and change into some clothes you don’t mind getting dirty!” she adds as she disappears down the hall toward the breaker box. 

She flips the breaker to the kitchen, eternally grateful for the wide windows in the living room that will let in plenty of natural light, and slips into her room to grab her bright yellow hard hat Ruby got her one year as a joke. 

Her slew of tools are all in the guest bedroom where Yang has started trying to keep them contained now that she doesn’t live alone. She grabs a couple pairs of gloves and a hammer for each of them. 

She smiles when she turns around to find Blake in the doorway in a pair of worn jeans and a faded blue sweatshirt, casual and relaxed. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail to show off the look of apprehension on her face. 

“Here, see if these will fit you.” Yang tosses her a pair of work gloves and grabs some safety glasses as well. 

“They’re a little big but they’ll work.” Blake flexes her hands in the gloves and Yang passes her a set of glasses. 

She dons her own pair of glasses and gloves before she turns back to grab the hard hat, miraculously keeping a straight face as she turns back around and hands it to Blake. 

“Alright, last thing.” She proffers the hat.

Blake’s blind trust in her is too endearing as she frowns at the hat but puts it on anyway, adjusting her ponytail a little so it isn’t in the way. It takes everything in Yang not to laugh. 

“Is this really necessary?” Blake asks as they head back toward the kitchen. She holds the hammer Yang gives her in both hands, stands unsure but relaxed in her hard hat, glasses, and gloves. She looks adorable. 

“Of course. Wouldn’t want that pretty little head of yours getting bonked, do we?” Yang knocks her knuckles against the top of the helmet. Blake winces slightly and narrows her eyes. 

“What about yours? Shouldn’t you be wearing one of these?”

“Please, Blake, I’m a professional,” she answers, waving a hammer unprofessionally toward Blake.

“Right.” She doesn’t sound convinced by doesn’t protest further either. “So how do we do this?” Her frown shifts toward the wall, eyes scouring it like she’s summing it up. 

Yang squares up with the living room-side of the kitchen wall they’re standing beside. “First thing’s first, we’ll tear off the drywall on either side.” Yang demonstrates by punching a hole in it with a hard swing of her hammer. 

She starts near the doorway far enough from the edge to clear the two-by-four frame, then hammers a line of holes across until she hits the next stud. “Now I’m just gonna yank this piece off.” She sets the hammer down to use both hands, grips the lower piece of wall and jerks it free, the piece of drywall breaking off halfway down. “Rinse and repeat until we’re down to the studs.” She drops the piece in her hands to the floor with a muffled thunk.

Blake stares at the piece for a moment skeptically before looking back to the wall. “I think I can manage that.” 

The set in her shoulders is determined, though her first swing at the wall is a little hesitant. It’s enough to poke through but the way she’s so careful pulling it back out leaves Yang too amused to hide a smile. 

“You don’t have to be gentle. It’s not going to hit you back.” 

She wants the words back as soon as she says them, sees Blake’s muscles tense up like she’s been caught. Yang swallows down anger at ghosts that aren’t her business, clears her throat, tries to regain some ground and averts her eyes. 

“When you’re demolishing something like this - something that is all coming down rather than just part - you don’t have to be too careful about swinging. To start you just want to make a hole big enough you can get a handhold and rip a chunk down.” She hammers a quick line of holes and tears another piece off. It breaks in a jagged diagonal line. She pretends not to notice the flinch Blake makes at the sound.

But Blake’s next swing is more assured and full bodied, her hammer slamming the whole head through the wall, and her jerk back takes a little chunk with it. Yang grins at the wild breath she can see Blake pulling at, the abandon she’s spilling. 

“Just like that.” She can tell her voice is too soft for the encouragement as she says it.

Blake meets her eye, a flash in the frying pan, a sear of heat in her Yang understands too well. It’s gone as fast as it appeared, but when Blake silently turns back to hammer again, Yang can see the change in her posture, the charge to her swings. 

There’s a fire there even Yang’s not sure she could handle. It’s riveting to watch Blake lose herself to the motions. 

\----

Blake has to admit, as she takes a turn chopping holes in the wall, it’s kind of fun to be able to be productively destructive. 

She’s spent enough time filling in holes someone else put in walls that she figured the sound and sight would make her cringe, but she finds a smile creeping up her face as she swings a hammer through drywall again and again. She feels alive with it, at Yang’s enthusiastic encouragement, at her own undoing. 

“Hey, by the way,” Yang calls over the noise of their ripping and hammering and tearing, popping her head over a hole on the other side of the wall. “I hope you don’t mind but my dad is gonna stop in just a bit to drop off some tools for me.” 

“Oh.” Blake glances down at her clothes, drywall dust-streaked and old, definitely not suited for company. 

“Don’t worry about being a mess, he’s probably gonna be way worse,” Yang says with an idle wave of her hand, apparently reading Blake’s thought. “Most of his clothes are stained or full of holes or both. Plus he’s pretty oblivious so it’s not like he’d notice. You can change though if you’d feel more comfortable. Or I can just grab the tools from him outside and send him on his way?” Yang sounds like she’s spiraling the longer she lists out ways to put Blake at ease. 

“No, it’s okay. Just wasn’t exactly expecting company.” 

Yang snorts. “‘Company’ is giving him way too much credit.” 

Yang tears free a large piece of drywall and disappears past the wall they haven’t reached yet. Blake peaks around the corner to track her, watches Yang set the piece by the door. She catches Blake watching when she turns around. 

“We can throw the scraps in the back of my truck when we’re done,” she explains and heads back through the kitchen doorway of the untouched wall. 

Blake spends the following fifteen minutes taking her apprehension out on the wall in front of her, wondering nervously what Yang’s dad will be like. By the time he knocks on the door and Yang shouts for him to come in, Blake’s constructed a whole persona she expects. 

What she didn’t imagine was someone so much like Yang. 

He comes through the door with a heavy armful of power tools and a wound extension cord thrown over his shoulder, a brilliant smile on his lips and sandy blonde hair disheveled enough to match his daughter’s wild mane. 

His yellow t-shirt is indeed stained with streaks of paint that remind Blake of Yang’s pants the first day they met, and his jeans aren’t quite worn through at the knees but show an obvious amount of wear. It puts Blake at ease in her own dressed down state.

“Hey, kiddo, where do you want me to put this stuff?” he asks with a kind voice that settles Blake further. 

“Through there is fine for now,” Yang waves toward the spare bedroom. “Need a hand?” 

Yang follows after him as he trails toward the collection of tools. Blake can hear a muffled exchange of voices but tries not to listen in, going back to the last bit of drywall this section has before she can start in on the other wall. 

“Want a hand with some of these studs?” Yang’s dad asks as they both reappear. 

“Sure, that’d be great. But before that, come meet my new roommate.” Yang pops up at her elbow with a warm smile and bumps her hip against Blake’s. “This is Blake, she’s new to handiwork but an obvious natural.” She can’t tell if Yang is teasing or not. “And Blake, this is my dad, Tai. I usually don’t let him meet my friends so go easy on him,” Yang fake whispers behind a hand. 

Blake rolls her eyes at Yang and smiles toward Tai. “It's nice to meet you.” 

Tai’s smile back is wide and welcoming. “Nice to meet you too, Blake. And don’t listen to Yang. Half the time she over-embellishes and the other half she just outright lies.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Blake ribs with an eye roll, a smaller, realer smile playing out on her lips. 

Yang scoffs. “Hey, never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Uncle Qrow taught me that ages ago.” Her grin is as wide as Tai’s as she picks her hammer back up and starts on the next wall, standing close enough to Blake around the corner she catches her eye between swings. Yang winks her way and tears another chunk of wall off. 

“I’m glad Yang’s found a roommate who isn’t afraid to call her on her bullshit,” Tai laughs. 

With his help the rest of the demo goes much faster than it had before. Blake has the distinct feeling that Yang was slowing her own pace down to keep Blake from feeling inadequate. They stack large pieces of drywall near the side door, and smaller pieces and powdery crumbles litter the floor where the walls once stood. 

The frame of the walls look stark and fragile behind their peeled back skin. It makes Blake think of her own walls. What little framing still stands to support her. What her head looks like now that she’s started tearing out what doesn’t belong, walls that kept her closed in tight, her own red room. 

Yang encourages her to take a couple swings at the bared boards when they finally start in on the studs but Blake’s swings aren’t nearly as productive as either Yang’s or Tai’s so she steps back and lets them at it. Yang looks way too gleeful as she knocks long lengths of board free from the ceiling and floor, wild and willful contrasted against Tai’s methodical, calm expression as he pries boards free. 

When they’re done making quick work of the studs, Blake is left standing in the living room with a genuine smile on her face as she looks clearly into the kitchen. The leftover bits of red in it are barely a blush compared to the swamping walls they’ve torn down. The difference is kind of incredible, for the one room itself and the whole space at large.

It… breathes now. 

“So, Blake, what did you think of your first demo job?” Yang asks as she takes in Blake in taking in the change. 

“It was actually kind of fun,” she admits. “I feel like a real construction worker now,” she jokes as they all grab handfuls of the debris to carry to the truck bed or stuff smaller pieces into the industrial size trash bag. 

“You certainly look the part,” Tai laughs as he heads to the door with a couple of boards. “That helmet is a real hoot.” 

Out of the corner of her eye she catches Yang struggling not to laugh and turns on her.

“I don’t actually have to wear this, do I?” She tries to bury her rising indignation under cool disbelief. Yang bites the inside of her cheek not to laugh outright and Blake yanks the hat off with her free hand and huffs, other fist clenching a small piece of drywall in a death grip . “I can’t believe you.”

“Oh come on, you looked so cute in it. Like a real construction worker!” 

She throws the chunk of drywall at Yang. 

“Whoa, safety violation, Belladonna! For someone so concerned an hour ago about regulations you sure are living on the edge now!” Yang laughs and picks up the piece Blake had thrown at her, piling other pieces into her arms as well.

“You think you’d be more careful antagonizing someone who knows where you sleep.”

Yang straightens and fishes her phone out of her pocket, flashing Blake a picture of her in the hat, and shrugs. “Worth it.”

Blake scoops up a handful of drywall crumbles and throws them at Yang’s head. Dust and debris hang in her hair. 

Yang’s jaw drops open and for a blink her eyes flash dangerous. It stuttered Blake’s heart to a stop, a crash of warning sirens before Yang lets out a disbelieving laugh. “Now you’ve done it.”

She drops the scraps in her arms to the ground and Blake takes a terrified step back, wondering if she’s just pressed Yang’s limit, found her fault lines.

“I know you didn’t just mess with my hair.”

Her tone hits playful notes that soothe Blake’s frantic fear from taking off as Yang snatches at her and hauls her over a shoulder with a laugh. The hard hat falls out of her hand and Blake lets out a shout, batting wildly at Yang’s back as she starts toward the door with her.

Tai comes back inside to the sight of Blake squirming and kicking to be put down.

“Enough room in the truck for this armfull?” Yang asks Tai, a grin obvious in her voice. 

Tai laughs and shakes his head. Blake can barely see, craning her neck around to watch the exchange.

“I don’t think they allow bodies at the dump anymore, Yang.” Tai says as he goes to grab some more scraps. “They’ve gotten so strict these days,” he jokes.

“Damn.. Your lucky day, I guess, Blake.”

Her body slides against Yang’s as she’s set down and they’re so close within each other’s personal space Blake’s breath hitches, proximity with others not something she’s accustomed to anymore. 

She swallows a little, the moment pooling inexplicably thick between them as Yang is obviously affected too, one of her hands hovering on her hip as the smile on her lips sloughs off.

“You two are as ridiculous as Ruby and Yang were when they were little.”

It’s enough to break the tension and Blake draws away with a quick breath, drawing back in on herself. Yang seems to shake herself too as she yanks her hand away and turns to scoop up the drywall she dropped a moment ago.

For a few hard heartbeats Blake is terrified things between them will be filled with the same weird energy of the moment before. But after an uncomfortable silent second or two of gathering pieces of the wall into their arms, Yang grabs the hard hat off the floor and puts it on, shooting Blake a grin and a wink on her way toward the door.

Blake rolls her eyes but follows behind with her own chunks of drywall, awkwardness thankfully seeming to melt away with that. 

\----

The living room is still abysmally empty. Yang says her dad will bring over the couch from her old apartment after they’ve finished painting the living room and patching the ceiling (one less obstacle to gather dust in the interim) but for now it’s bare besides the dog bed that looks comically small as a lone pillow in a large room. 

The lack of furniture stands out far more now that the dining room, kitchen, and living room are one wide open space and Blake can’t wait to have a functioning place to lounge in outside of her room. 

She’s used to eating meals on a couch while she watches a show or scrolls on her phone, so with the only options being eat in her room or setting her laptop up at the dinner table, she opts for the latter and accepts the lack of comfortability. 

It’s become another piece of their rhythm, Blake and Yang picking out something to watch together over whatever dinner Yang makes for the evening. 

When Yang asks that night if she wants to watch a movie in her room instead, Blake’s aching back jumps at the offer. Her body is exhausted from the labor of tearing down walls, using muscles she didn’t even know she had, and her mind is tired and slow from nights of restless sleep catching up with her. 

She is awake enough to tell Yang yes and drowsy enough she probably should have crawled into her own bed instead. But the day off from work tomorrow holds the tender promise of sleeping in and the luxury of staying up a little later tonight than she should. 

They migrate from the table into Yang’s room and Blake is struck by the realization that this is actually the first time she’s been in here. 

A bookcase Blake plans to peruse later stands in the far corner across Yang’s bed and a wide sunburst wall hanging is pinned over her headboard. A spiral of string lights are stuck to the ceiling around Yang’s fan so that when she turns both on, the spiral blurs a little, raining diffused light across the room when Yang clicks off the light. 

It feels… cozy. 

Light. 

Safe. 

And as if the universe is conspiring against her sleepy mind, Yang’s mattress is sinfully comfortable. It’s a double-edged sword of relief against Blake’s exhaustion, bidding her to immediately wiggle in deeper under the blankets and bat back the urge to fall asleep.

Yang takes her time picking out a movie, consulting Blake who responds minimally in sleepy mumbles. 

Caught between the lousy nights leading up to this one, Yang’s bed trying to swallow her whole, and the full stomach she’s sporting after dinner, Blake barely lasts the first ten minutes of the movie before slipping off to the first easy sleep she’s claimed in this house.

She’s shocked in the morning when she wakes to unfamiliar surroundings, jerking in alarm before she realizes where she is. She draws covers around her as she draws deep breaths and works to slow her racing heart. When she’s managed to calm down a little, she’s even more shocked to realize she actually slept soundly through the night.

She can tell her body is going to be incredibly sore today, muscles in her arms and back already aching in protest as she shifts a little and feels a wave of tiredness creep back up around her. As she floats in sleepy limbo, she’s aware of two sources of heat around her, one at her feet and one to her back. 

Rolling over finds Bumblebee stretched out at the foot of the bed across Yang’s feet and against the bottom of Blake’s. Beside her, a splash of blonde hair is splayed across the pillow, Yang spread out on her back opposite Blake. A leg and hip are pressed near enough to radiate heat even under the fan whirling furiously above them, wobbling unsteadily against the ceiling. 

She’s suddenly thankful for Yang replacing the fan in her own room if the old one shook as precariously as Yang’s.

She shifts a little and tries not to jostle either of her bedmates, fighting a yawn and the sigh that follows. Her eyes skim over Yang beside her, admittedly a little fascinated to see her so still and quiet, rare traits for Yang as far as Blake can tell.

Her right arm is outstretched up beside her head, all curves of muscle even when relaxed, ending before the elbow in rounded, sacred skin. It’s the first time she’s seen Yang without her prosthetic attached. Her face is turned enough that Blake can appreciate her profile, predictably beautiful even asleep. It isn’t fair for someone to look as effortlessly breathtaking as she always does.

Blake squashes the thought with a stab of embarrassment and wiggles a little deeper into the blankets, in toward Yang, to combat the morning chill in the air, the fan doing nothing to encourage Blake out of bed.

When Yang rouses, her easy smile materializing predictably, morning seems to melt off of her. Her face becomes animated in a few slow blinks and Blake braces herself for the inevitable teasing about falling asleep here. 

But she doesn’t tease Blake like she expects. 

Instead, she only asks “Sleep well?” in a groggy voice. It sounds genuine though, soft and curious, like she’s aware of how rough Blake’s nights have been lately.

She only hums softly at first, morning always holding her voice captive, but after a moment of hesitation she volunteers, “I haven’t gotten used to sleeping alone yet. It’s nice to be near someone.”

It feels so easy to give Yang this, to open up a little, let her in. There’s a vein of trust running between them that Blake’s not sure the source of or when it was traced out, but it’s there and warm and sacredly safe. She cradles it and cuts herself free from soft fears.

She hasn’t talked to Yang much at all about the past that’s brought her here, only small scraps here and there that are enough for now – it has to be, is all Blake can give just yet.

“I get that. I have nightmares sometimes and having Bumblebee helps a lot. I’m not sure what I’d do without her. I know it’s not really comparable to another person but it’s something. Just being able to listen to her breathing whenever I wake up panicked helps so much.”

And maybe this is part of that trust tracing out, how readily Yang always opens up in return, how willing she is to share that makes Blake want to give back, wants to meet her halfway.

“I get nightmares too,” she admits, swallows and shifts a little deeper into the blankets to ward off shivers that have nothing to do with the cold. “It’s been years since I’ve had a bed to myself and it’s a lot harder to get used to than I expected. I didn’t mean to fall asleep here last night but your bed is stupidly comfortable.”

Yang’s chuckle is warm and low and Blake is close enough she can feel its vibrations through the bed. “I adore my bed. I’d live here if I could, but Bee would never forgive me.” 

Yang stretches and Bumblebee lifts her head, excited at the mention of her name, tail swishing back and forth against Yang’s bedspread before she launches herself to the floor and trots off down the hall. Yang laughs and shakes her head.

As Yang slips out from under the covers, Blake stretches to follow suit, trying not to groan as she shuffles toward the edge of the bed. 

“Don’t get up on my account. I’ve just gotta feed Bee before there’s a mutiny. I could still use another half hour or two of sleep myself.”

Yang doesn’t wait to see what Blake decides, slipping out her door and down the hallway in a flash. Blake stretches deeper into the blankets, happier than she should be to get to settle back in for a little extra sleep. 

She listens absently to Yang make her way into the dining room and scoop out food for Bumblebee. 

Blake’s sigh is deep and lazy as she settles fully back into the soft warmth of the covers around her, reveling in the simple guilty pleasure of carving out a lazy morning for herself, a prolonged lounging she rarely allows herself to indulge in.

She feels warm and safe in the oranges of blankets and sheets around her, the washed out morning light that spills past the edges of Yang’s curtains.

By the time Yang wanders back in, Blake is already dozing. 

She rouses slightly when Yang shuffles under the covers beside her but a sleepy fog smoothly coalesces back around her when she stills. 

She feels Yang link pinkies with her own resting on the pillow between them and a smile lights the corner of her mouth as she dips below the horizon of sleep beside a warmth in the bed that sings of comfort rather than fear. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i thought about drawing a layout of the floor plan as a visual aid but figured that might be overdoing it a bit and you all probably don't care that much. i do hope the construction bits of this story aren't too abrasive or confusing though.
> 
> if you have a moment to leave a comment i'd love to hear what you thought of the chapter.  
and huge thanks to everyone who commented on chapter 1 <3 you all made me grin like a idiot.
> 
> Comments? Questions? Rude remarks? Drop me a line below to share your thoughts.


	3. precipices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yang starts to wonder "fellas, is it gay to yearn?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took a while. have a 14k chapter.  
(also feel free to point out any typos or mistakes you spot - i don't have a beta so i'm sure some slipped through my proofreading)

The wood paneling from the dining room lies layered in splinters in the bed of Yang’s truck. Blake had wondered, leaving for work this morning, what project she would come home to find Yang working on. Somehow this wasn’t even on the list.

The muted, bassy hum of music hits her before she makes it to the door, a heartbeat she’s slowly coming to associate with this house.

As Blake walks inside Bumblebee sticks her head in through the dog door flap but ducks back out unconcerned, Blake apparently too common a sight anymore to warrant the upheaval of an excited greeting when she could be away from the cacophony of noise Yang is busy conducting. Blake’s tempted to join her.

With the wood paneling now peeled away, the old drywall left behind in their dining room reveals an ugly green paint dark enough to leave Blake grimacing. Paired with the brown of the living room it feels like a sickly forest, dim and gloomy and dying.

It’s not a happy thought but she does her best not to linger on it.

Instead, she drops her keys in the ceramic bowl on the dining room table and takes in the sight of Yang once again bobbing on a stepladder, unaware and ambling in her rhythm, mudding the divots in the ceiling left behind from stripping the popcorn layer away.

Her hair is tied back in an uncharacteristic bun, a sight Blake’s only briefly seen once before when Yang pulled it back for a barely-tolerated ten minutes while they were loading debris from the demoed kitchen walls into her truck. She had griped to herself then as she gathered it into a bun and Blake got the feeling it wasn’t something Yang opted for regularly.

She can’t imagine. With how wild and thick Yang’s hair is, Blake’s not sure she’d ever wear it down if their places were swapped. Her own hair has gotten longer than she usually wears it, down to mid back and only going to get more annoying as the weather warms over. She runs an absent hand through her bangs to swipe them out of her face.

Still, Yang’s stack of wild hair has become something of a signature to Blake, as disorderly and unabashedly full as the woman who wears it. The sight of it up is a little jarring, so odd Blake stalls in her steps toeing off her shoes and can’t help but stare. With it swinging as Yang bobs her head, she looks freer, airy and light and somehow brighter than ever, flares of blonde pulled back off her shoulders into a loose bun on the top of her head.

“You’ve been busy.” Blake has to yell to be heard over the blaring music.

Startled, Yang almost loses her balance, jumping a little on the ladder and tipping precariously. Blake takes a panicked step toward her before Yang’s settled back into her comfortable lean on the ladder, an impressive feat considering her hands full with a mud pan and drywall knife.

“You’ve really got a knack for turning ladders into death traps for me, huh?” Yang flashes her a grin that slices away all malice from the words.

“That’s arguably your own fault, listening to music too loud to hear anyone walk in.”

She only shrugs and turns the volume down on her phone, the connected Bluetooth speaker dimming from a bellow to a buzz. “Yeah well, music makes the work go quicker.”

“So does an extra pair of hands. You got another mud pan?” Blake sheds her light sweater and tosses it over the back of a dining room chair. She’s pleased to see the table freshly wiped down.

Somehow the table, clean or not, has become a touchstone for Blake, an unspoken point of contention she carries around with her, however unfair that is. It’s a clear mark of reference. Clean or not. It’s still and senseless, but it’s obvious, easy to check, easy to control. Clean, or not.

“I don’t, but I can work off of a wider knife I have. You know how to patch drywall?” Yang asks on her climb down the ladder to shift it along to the next range of ceiling pockmarks, a measured progression.

“I’ve patched my share of holes before,” is all she says with a shrug and can see Yang sneak a glance at her before snapping back to wipe the drywall knife across the pan in her hand.

Blake swallows at her own comment, doesn’t linger as she winds back to a safe shore.

She blocks images of holes in walls that spring to mind, of tantrums and intimidation, of Adam lashing out at targets she hadn’t become yet. The popping sound of a fist through the wall hangs in her head, a ringing, a toll bell, a shudder she tries to shake off.

She heads down the hall to her room to change into clothes more suited for house work, ones she’s come to keep on hand for this sort of thing, ones she can get messy without worrying over or frowning at. There are a series of t-shirts she picked out at a thrift store for exactly this occasion, all a little loose on her to move freely within but don’t hang so gapingly like she’s come to expect from so much of her tired wardrobe these days. It’s a piece of her time with Adam that’s practically impossible to ignore, one she tries to shrug off anyway.

Her clenched fists shake as she strips off her top. She’s not sure if it’s from anger or anguish. She’s not sure she can tell the difference between them anymore.

The music down the hall amps back up a few notches, Yang filling in spaces of her own, and it calls Blake out of her misfit reverie, back into the present, grounds her in a song Adam would never have played. Quicksand to her thoughts, a lifesaver in a storm. The racket reels her gladly back in.

She throws on one of the plain white t-shirts she picked out for these work sessions and swaps her coffee shop pants out for some jeans that have seen better days. They hang off of her a little less than they did before she moved in here, a small victory filling out in reclaiming herself. It’s the first she’s noticed a difference, something that hiccups heavy in her throat and stalls her in her tracks. Her own measured progression.

By the time she comes back to help Yang, the metal pan with drywall compound and a clean knife sit waiting for her on the dining room table. There’s a long, narrow step-platform about knee-high opened under a scatter of scuffs in the dining room ceiling that Blake takes to be her section.

It’s been a bit since the last time she’s done this but it comes back to her quickly, the smooth motions of pressing joint compound into slivers and cracks, closing over broken points and smoothing out streaks her first swipe leaves behind. The drawn out _shhhhck_ of her knife over the ceiling is soothing, though muted against the blare of music, and the gritty sliding of excess mud against the side of the pan builds a rhythm that allows her to zone out, away from tender edges of a bruised past and into the drowned out firmness of this moment, so very far from everything she’s left behind.

It’s easy to get lost in it, the motions and sound and the smell of wet mud. It dries scattered over her knuckles and fingertips though she’s not sure how it gets spotted across them, gray and cracking at creased skin as she bends her fingers.

The sight of it covering wounds in the ceiling is as satisfying as it is to be fixing something real, to be building something better, improving something tangible. She pictures filling in broken pieces of her spotty history, sealing gaps and covering gangplanks.

They work in amiable silence among the music Yang has on and the scraping of their knives filling in divots across the ceiling. It’s enough. Enough to breath in, enough to hold her together. The quiet pulse feels natural. Like this is just what they do now. The unspoken silence isn’t stale or solemn but warm and full around. Insulating and easy. It’s not how silence in company usually feels to Blake. Instead, it’s simple. Simple enough to breathe around, forgiving instead of forced.

When they’re done, the ceiling is smoothed out up to the broken spaces where the kitchen walls once stood, where four inch gaps clearly mark the collapse they sanctioned. The living and dining room ceiling is mostly evened out, though left in a patchwork of light gray mud splotches that stand out against the white of the ceiling. It looks like healing skin, soft as it sets but sealed over, whole. It’s refreshing compared to the tatters they covered. Not perfect. But good enough for now.

Yang is looking at her again, watching, and Blake levels a look back at her, trying for unimpressed but feeling self-conscious instead. “What?”

Yang just shakes her head, ducks away to gather her tools and scrape excess compound back into its plastic bucket. “You just look thoughtful is all. Projects like this make me feel the same. It’s cool to see how a little patching can make such a difference.” Yang holds out a hand to collect Blake’s pan to scrape out her leftover mud. Blake takes the pause away from Yang’s stare to grab both their drywall knives and move toward the sink a safe distance away.

“These bits are probably my favorite parts — the surface things that make such a noticeable difference,” Yang continues, and Blake is thankful, not for the first or last time, how easily Yang fills in spaces between them, takes up the awkward pauses Blake leaves behind and closes them over like patching drywall.

“It’s rewarding, that’s for sure,” Blake offers back over her shoulder, gets caught up watching Yang draw the band out of her hair and whip her head back and forth like a dog shaking off bathwater. Her hands follow after, running through to fluff it back up to its standard lion mane glory. Blake swallows and turns away, scrubs harder at the crusted-on compound stuck to the flat of Yang’s knife. She has to clear her throat to speak again. “I hadn’t realized how much better the ceiling would look this way.”

“Popcorn ceiling is the bane of my existence,” Yang groans dramatically, rolling her head around in a circle as she saddles up next to Blake at the sink. “Scraping it is a pain in the ass but it looks so much better afterward that I can’t stand to leave it.” Yang bumps shoulders with her and takes the drywall knife Blake offers her to towel dry. “So.” Yang’s shift of tone marks an obvious change in subject to follow. Blake braces herself against the unknown. “I was thinking about going to look at paint colors this afternoon and figured we could pick up something for your room too, if you wanted to come along.”

It’s not what she expects but the thought is wonderfully welcome. “Gods yes, this house feels like a cave with all the brown everywhere.”

Yang turns around to lean against the counter. “Tell me about it. We’re almost ready to paint the…” she trails off, looking troubled, grasping for something she can’t pry up. “Livening room?” she settles on, motioning to the area around them. “I don’t really know what to call this space now that there aren’t walls separating it.”

Blake’s snort sneaks up on her. “Livening room. Sure.” And why not? She’s not sure what to call it anymore either.

“Anyway— once the mud dries and I’ve had a chance to sand it smooth, the ceiling and walls will finally be ready to paint. I’ll probably prime the walls tomorrow after I’ve wrapped up work with my dad.” Blake nods along absently, thinking about her own schedule tomorrow. Opening shift with Ilia and Velvet. Easy energy, none of Sun’s draining liveliness. “I should be home by late afternoon. The smell of the primer can be pretty potent so I figured I should give you fair warning. If the weather is nice I’ll probably open all the windows to try to air it out but there’s only so much that will help.”

“That’s fine. I can give you a hand with it if you’d like,” she volunteers, surprising herself a bit when the offer slips out so readily. Spending time with Yang on these projects has become surprisingly therapeutic, a chance for bigger worries to melt away for a bit, a chance to fix something touchable and real in front of her. Progress she can see. Something simple. She shouldn’t be as surprised as she is that it’s something solid she’s coming to rely on. “I’ve always liked painting and I’ll probably be off work before you are.”

“Blake, I can always use an extra hand,” Yang says with a wide grin as she twists her prosthetic off and waves it at her. Blake’s jaw drops for a beat before she clicks it shut and shakes her head.

“You’re so stupid,” she says dryly, turning around so Yang doesn’t see her smile. “Bumblebee, how do you put up with her?” she asks the dog that slipped in sometime since they started washing the drywall tools.

Bee sits contently by Blake’s feet, her tail thumping the laminate in excitement as Blake kneels down to pet her. It takes no time at all for her to lie down and roll over to invite belly rubs. Blake’s lips quirk into a small smile, smooth fur streaming between her fingertips.

“Hey! Bumblebee loves my jokes, I’ll have you know,” Yang scoffs as she crouches down beside Blake to scritch her dog as well. Her arm is back in place and slides sleekly along Bee’s side. “Don’t you, sweet girl?” she coos. Bumblebee’s tail thunks wildly in response to the tone.

“That’s because she doesn’t know any better. How many awful jokes have you had to suffer through alone before I came along to save you?” Blake finds herself imitating Yang’s tone, an unconscious slipping she feels a flare of embarrassment over when she registers it too late to take back.

“Save her? First off, she doesn’t need saving from my hilarious jokes. Secondly, you’ve done nothing to save her from it. In fact I’m pretty sure my jokes have only increased since you’ve gotten here.”

“Oh, so you’re going to blame me for it?”

“Please, I’m giving you credit, Belladonna.”

“Well then for the sake of the greater good I should probably move out.” Blake stands up and makes as if she’s about to leave before Yang springs forward from the floor and grabs one of her ankles, turning over onto her back to stare up at Blake with a pout and puppy eyes. Bee huffs at being ignored and noses at Yang’s free hand.

“No, Blake! The greater good doesn’t give a fuck if you stay, but I do.” Her tone is playful but the words hit heavy and honest, a bulldozer to Blake’s chest. “Besides, who’s going to hold me accountable for all my safety regulations if you’re not here?”

Blake’s eye roll earns a laugh from Yang. “I’m sure there are a ton of dumbasses out there you could find to stick in your stupid hard hat.” Her lips wrap wryly in a grudging smile as she crosses her arms, staring down at Yang who lets go of her ankle but remains on the floor, hair spread around her head in a spray of sunlight.

“But how many of them would look as cute as you did in it?” Yang teases, toothy smile flaring to life off her lips.

“That’s your problem, not mine.” She straightens her lips when she realizes she’s smiling back. “So are you just going to stay down there all day or are you going to keep me company while I go buy some paint?” she asks as she crosses to the door, snatching Yang’s keys from the table as she goes.

“Hey!” Yang scrambles to her feet indignantly. “_You_ are coming with _m_e, not the other way around here. And _I’m_ buying the paint,” she squawks. “It’s my renovation project after all.”

“You are not! It’s _my_ room.”

She tosses Yang the keys as they head out the door.

\----

Yang sets her chin on Blake’s shoulder as they stand before a rainbow sea of paint swatches.

“Yang, I swear to gods if you keep fighting me on letting me pay for the paint for my room, I’m making you pick the color and I’m going back to the truck.”

Yang stares at her for a long moment, close enough it must hurt her eyes to focus, before she shrugs and pulls back. “Okay,” she says simply, like they haven’t been arguing about it for the last half hour before they even stepped foot into the store.

There’s a bit of a thrill that courses through Blake at winning an argument — at even arguing in the first place — but she puts it down with a tiny smile as she turns back to the wall of paint chips to consider her options and struggles to ignore the way Yang’s body heat melts off of her. From the corner of her eye she can see Yang watching her still but she tries to put it out of her head and focus on the task at hand.

“Remember you’re also picking out some options for the living room while we’re here,” Yang reminds after a moment, finally turning away from Blake to search the swatches for her own picks.

“Grab a couple colors you like and I’ll help you narrow it down,” Blake says absently, pulling a pair of light purples from the wall and holding them against each other to compare. Her childhood room in Menagerie had been lilac. The swatches in her hand are both a little darker than that but she finds herself hung up on them in recall of a past she doesn’t want slipping through her fingers like she wills so much else to.

“I want something warm and bright to cover over the gloomy brown,” Yang muses aloud a few paces away from her, miles away from Blake’s train of thought. “The carpet is still gonna be there for a bit so preferably something that won’t clash with it.”

Blake registers the words a little late but tries to catch up, shake off trails of thought that lead her too close to feelings she can’t confront right now.

“Maybe a light blue? Or a green?” she snatches an airy green paint swatch off the wall of colors and hands it to Yang without looking at her, still a little fixed on the purples in her hand.

“Ooh, good eye. This is nice.”

Blake only hums noncommittally and pulls a third shade of purple she shuffles between the other two.

\----

“It’s just a name,” Yang laughs, trying to reason with the logical side of Blake she knows lies not far beneath her prickly surface as she swings the can of light green paint in pace with her loose steps. It’s a hue warm enough to make Yang forget about all the dark tan it will be covering over. That doesn’t seem to do it for Blake though, hung up on technicalities and silly things like names.

The paint is called Avocado Whip and Blake’s obvious hate of the name was enough to make Yang fight for Blake to stick with her choice instincts – Blake is indignant about it, hilariously so, but obviously taken with the color itself. Her twenty minute, painstaking struggle to find a similar shade with a better name was enough to leave Yang bookmarking this as a memory she’ll be fondly paging back to with a snort. Yang sees it as a fight for the greater good, defending Blake’s superb taste in color against her aversion toward dumb paint names.

“Every time I look at the walls all I’m going to think about is this stupid name,” Blake pouts even as she carries the second gallon of it to Yang’s truck, a can of purple for her room in the other hand.

“And what’s so wrong with that? It’s a funny name.”

The incredulous deadpan Blake sends her is, alone, worth sticking with this color.

If there’s anything Blake has mastered, it’s all the many facets of a deadpan.

It’s stupidly charming, forces a grin from Yang no matter the topic at hand. She’s been meaning to watch that easy reaction, worried about letting Blake on to realize how much of an upper hand she already has when it comes to their exchanges, to winning Yang over.

“It sounds like a kind of baby food,” Yang excuses, realizes too late how little that argument will do to sell Blake on the color. “Or something pompous you’d see on a cooking channel,” she amends instead, slips to fill in cracks. “A name is really not that big a deal,” she tries halfheartedly.

Blake’s stony expression doesn’t change as they reach the truck, flinging cans of paint into the flood board of the passenger seat by Blake’s scuffed boots.

“We can make up our own name for it if it’ll make you feel better,” Yang appeals as she shuts the driver’s side door, ignores the skeptical look Blake shoots her way. They click seat belts into place and with an engine sputter, turn their backs on choosing new paint colors.

“Like what?” Blake’s voice is gravel, sharp enough to cut Yang’s soft spots for her.

She clears her throat, grasps for lifelines. “I don’t know. Broccoli Whip?” She can’t stop the dumb wink that weasels out, the stupid grin she slides toward Blake like a bribe.

“I’m going to throw this paint out the window,” Blake counters flatly, but Yang can make out the slightest twitch on her lips and calls it a win. A giving. All these tiny bits of coming around, of common ground Yang digs up from Blake. It’s enough to plant seeds in for now.

Yang feints a gasp. “Don’t you dare, Blake Belladonna. Paint doesn’t just grow on trees you know. Even Avocado Whip.” She spares a dramatic sigh for both their sakes – breathing room, guess work. She’s not sure if Blake notices. In a rush she fills in, never allows herself to linger long. “So no food names. Fine. Paints are always named something pretentious anyway, so we’ll just come up with something dumb like ‘Spring’s Embrace.’”

Blake snorts. “Sure, maybe ‘Morning Dew’ or ‘Leaf’s Blush,’” she affects in an exaggerated posh accent, rolling her eyes hard enough it had to have hurt. Her smile withers the storm of her expression though and Yang soars on it easily.

Her following laugh bursts at the suggestions, too readily popped. She swallows back trepidation, her own eagerness. “Wow, Blake, why are you working at a coffee shop? You’ve totally missed your calling as a paint namer.”

“How do people even get that job? What do their resumes look like to qualify them to pull names out of their asses for shades of paint?”

Yang’s quick glance toward her takes in Blake flicking lint off her tight jeans, a smart smirk on her lips and a quietly buried enjoyment Yang finds herself chewing on daily, tucks back like a dollar for a rainy day, goads to pry out of Blake as often as she can manage.

She can tell it’s not a practiced offering, one of the few genuine razor edges of Blake that makes it past her guarded exterior. It’s never easy to wrangle from her but Yang’s always loved a challenge; swallowing sharp points seems right up her alley.

Because why not? Blake is already a compromise on all her parameters. She’s snuck up on Yang like a shadow and a smirk.

“You’d have to ask the internet on that one, love,” Yang says, shrugging over a long sigh, overdrawing on the wistful tone she uses to tease out as much of a coy reaction Blake will tip-toe toward. She treads past the threshold of trying out pet names, pretends she doesn’t notice this line she’s slipping across, isn’t holding her breath it will land. “Maybe you don’t apply for it, it applies for you,” Yang offers in the best “sagely advice” tone she can muster up around the nonsense.

Blake’s snort is palpable, loud and filling and unabashed. Yang wonders if Blake’s seldom-mentioned ex ever tolerated it. “You’re so stupid.” It’s full of affection, full of flourishing, full of allowance.

She’ll take every easy jab Blake will aim her way.

Yang’s exaggerated laugh falls right after Blake’s remark, given unbidden and overly zealous. “I’m a fucking pleasure and you know it.” It’s so much easier to play full of herself than peel back layers of her self-doubt.

She levels a heavy smile at Blake, covering over shortcomings, and recognizes the ease it seems to wrap her in, the tightly-wound nerves Blake lets her take down like pried-out studs.

It’s obviously something she rarely allows. Something, accordingly, that Yang takes very seriously, tugs threads away one stitch at a time with careful fingers she hopes aren’t pressing nerves. Blake is far too intricate a patchwork tapestry to pry loose carelessly.

Yang holds her breath every pluck of the way.

Blake’s grin in return is beautiful, as grudgingly given as her willingness to choose this paint and the quick roll of her eyes lets Yang know she’s letting the subject go. Yang tries hard to keep her eyes on the road. She feels herself losing battles on countless fronts, drowning in daylight and new spring growth.

She’s already so in trouble with this girl.

(Days later, Blake goes to refill their paint trays as they tackle covering the livening room walls and she bursts out laughing when she finds Yang’s scribbled ‘Morning Dew’ above the crossed out Avocado Whip. The sound fills Yang’s chest, a downpour in drought, watering seeds she’s been planting in each of them.)

\----

Yang wasn’t kidding when she said the primer stinks. The offensive smell clings sharply in Blake’s nose despite thrown-open windows. The competing scent of vanilla incense Blake lit a bit ago does nothing to dampen the overwhelming waft of primer Blake hopes she’ll get used to before long. Bee wisely vacated the house the moment Yang opened the can and poured the first pan of primer. Blake wishes she would’ve gone with her.

Not that rolling primer onto the dark tan and green walls isn’t something Blake is glad to be included in. It’s exciting to watch the dark colors swept away under thin white primer, tan and green peeking splotchily out from beneath, seeing the shroud of gloom lift swipe by swipe under the roller in Blake’s hand. Yeah, she doesn’t want to miss this. The smell is worth it. Mostly.

Not to mention the company. That’s definitely worth it.

Yang’s tongue sticks out at the corner of her mouth as she skims a steady brush along the top of the wall and Blake tears her attention back to her own work. She was relieved when Yang asked which she’d prefer, rolling or cutting in, her confidence in her ability to paint a straight line blanching in the face of Yang’s heavy-handed perfectionism.

Even though it’s doubtful Yang would actually say anything about the streaks Blake would probably leave behind against the ceiling, she didn’t want to risk getting on Yang’s nerves. It wasn’t until she saw Yang swiping a path along both the wall and the ceiling that she started to feel dumb. Of course the ceiling would need painting too after they left a maze of blotches behind where they patched it.

Still, the roller in her hand covers ground much faster than Yang’s brush allows, and the faster she finishes the sooner she can get away from this smell.

Pausing as she rolls up the last bit of primer from her pan, she trails it along the stripe on the wall she left off at. Her arms are starting to get tired, the pole she screw onto the roller giving her a farther reach but wider range of motions that work muscles she’s been slowly acquainting herself with since moving in with Yang.

She’s almost done with the three living room walls, the one stretching into the dining room ending in a jagged sweep of her roller where Yang’s ladder blocks her path. She looks up at her roommate as she leans the blunt end of her pole against the floor to rest her arms, thankful for her empty pan giving her an excuse to pause.

Focus is sharp in Yang’s lilac eyes, trailing along each back and forth stroke she glides her brush across. There’s a paper towel hanging out of her overalls chest pocket, one strap hanging unhooked over her shoulder alongside the long braid she pulled her hair back into for this project.

Blake’s eyes drift to the swath of skin left exposed on Yang’s side considering her lack of shirt, black sports bra doing little to deter Blake’s less than stellar self-control. Smooth skin contracts lightly over hiding muscles. Soft. It looks so soft.

A clearing throat above her rips her attention away toward Yang’s sharp smirk.

Caught.

Shit.

“See something you like, Belladonna?”

A bloom of fire in her cheeks rats out her embarrassment even over narrowed eyes, and Yang’s laugh beats her to a reply.

“Don’t worry, art is made to be looked at,” Yang cheeks with a wink and a glint in her eye as she descends from the ladder.

“You know, Weiss seems to think you’re full of yourself but I’m not sure where on earth she got that idea,” Blake says sarcastically, eyes rolling, trying to deflect, move this conversation away from being caught staring. And so what if she was admiring Yang’s muscles? Can’t a girl have a moment to feel inadequate in peace?

“Weiss is just jealous someone could outmatch her on that front.” Yang shifts the ladder farther along the wall, out of Blake’s way and toward her own finish line.

“Yes, I’m sure that’s it. Nothing to do with your constant, vocally inflated sense of self.”

“Blake,” Yang breathes in a tone too serious for the moment, a concerned expression written wide across her face. “It’s not _inflated_.” Her tone is stained with heavy-handed offense, a hand to her chest in the picture of wounded pride.

“Christ... Have you ever considered that you were a movie star in a past life? Surely your ego can’t be from this life alone.”

“Bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Then you could watch me all you’d like.” Her grin is insufferable.

“Hey, remember that fear you voiced yesterday about ladders becoming death traps around me? I’d think about that before you make any more jokes, Xiao Long.”

Yang fakes a gasp, another hand to her heart. “Threats of assault in my own home? Quick, Bumblebee, attack!” Her eyes dart around like Bee hasn’t been outside for hours. “Bumblebee? Damn, what good is a dog if she’s not going to defend my honor from scoundrels like you?”

“Defend your own honor, princess.” Blake sticks her tongue out and presses the end of her roller pole against the side of Yang’s ladder threateningly.

Yang playfully swats the pole away with her brush, slinging a sprinkle of white droplets across the carpet from her wild slash. “Whoops.” Her grimace is wholly unconcerned.

“Smooth move.” Blake takes the distraction as a chance to poke Yang in the side, the wooden pole giving her safe reach.

Except she doesn’t expect Yang to wrap her hand around the end and yank it free from Blake’s grasp. She sucks in a breath in shock. Shit.

Yang’s wicked grin strikes terror into her heart. At least she’s not attached to these clothes.

“Who needs defending now?” Yang waves the roller precariously close to Blake’s face and Blake makes a grab for it under the roller handle. The soggy, spongy texture of the loaded roller slides against her elbow but she gets a good enough grip on the handle to hold her own against Yang trying to wave it around again.

Thankfully, Yang drops down off the ladder before their struggle for the rod does it for her. Blake uses the momentum to jerk the pole toward her, trying to pry it free from Yang’s hand. Her prosthetic is still gripping the paint brush opposite the roller pole so in theory Blake’s two-handed grip should be enough to get the upper hand. But Yang manages to hold on and the move only pulls her closer with the pole, close enough to see mischief twinkle in Yang’s eyes.

She swipes the brush against Blake’s nose, earning the pole free from Blake’s grip as she gasps, hands loosening in shock as she snatches one to her wet nose.

Yang’s grin is gleeful as she leans casually against the pole, head tilted to the side and brush triumphantly aloft in her other hand. “Whoops, you got a little something there,” she teases, waving the brush toward Blake again as if to dab another spot on her face.

Blake doesn’t let her, giving up the struggle for the roller and snatching for the brush instead, ripping it free from Yang’s surprises grasp and turning it against her.

“Not the hair,” Yang shrieks halfheartedly in a laugh, trying to bat Blake away with one arm.

By the time Blake’s struggle for revenge fizzles out, two long streaks of white grace Yang’s forehead and cheek all the way down to one of her collarbones. They’re both left huffing from laughter and Yang’s free arm has managed to wrangle Blake trapped against her, back pressed to Yang’s front and hand tight around the brush both of Blake’s hands still clutch for dear life, weakly pushing back against Yang’s determined attempts to swing it toward her face.

“Okay, okay! I give up!” Yang laughs, out of breath and vibrant. She lets go of the brush in truce, wrapping her arm around Blake’s middle instead to keep her from twisting around and painting Yang’s whole face.

It feels so natural, so smooth and obvious, that it takes Blake a moment to realize how close they are, how much of her is pressed against Yang, how warm Yang feels against her back, the heaving of both their chests, the cool metal of Yang’s arm singing contrast to the heat pouring off of them each.

And oh, it feels nice. Catches her completely off guard with the stirred up familiarity they’ve been closing in on, these easy exchanges that keep creeping up. Yang is comfortable and firm and grounding, lighting a warmth in Blake she hasn’t felt in a long time.

It’s too much. Unrecognizable. Completely recognizable. Easy going and trained into her as terrifyingly dangerous.

Her first instinct it to yank away. Distance. Safety. Boundaries she usually keeps in place. One’s she’ll have to fumble to prop up here.

Her second instinct is to soak this in, the unearned familiarity, the calm pressure around her, this tide of affection she finds herself desperate to float on. It’s been so long since she’s been held like this, flush and warm without a niggling of defensive discomfort seeding in her belly. Things with Yang all seem so easy to slip into.

It’s too much. All wrong. Unwarranted. Complicated. Callous against her own slow progress. A threat. Trespassing across a drawn out foundation Blake is desperately trying to rebuild.

Panicking at the feeling, how easily she’s slipped into this, she twists a little to look at Yang over her shoulder. Yang’s cheeks are flushed from their struggle and her breath comes in slight puffs but her eyes are soft and slide over Blake so slowly it hurts.

“Yang?” she breathes, feels it catch rough in her throat like Velcro tearing free.

“Hmmm?” She can feel the hum of it vibrate against her back.

She clears her throat and twists around fully, tearing free from Yang’s grip on her, taking a half step back as Yang’s arm falls away, desperate distance she clings to. Her chest is full of thunder storming for a break, a flash to escape in.

“I missed a spot,” she breathes, dabs the brush on the tip of Yang’s nose and cuts herself free from this heavy feeling knocking long in her chest.

It’s enough to crest the tension, Yang’s laugh bubbling out and setting the pace, giving space, breathing room she backs away into. She fumbles to resets flimsy boundaries she’s worried don’t hold like she’s used to.

“Well now that you’ve got the brush I guess you get to finish the cutting in. Lucky me, since the rolling is almost done. Thanks, Blake. That’s really thoughtful of you to want to finish this alone.”

“Not a chance, jackass,” she gripes with relief at the shift back into safe territory, steadying her bounding heartbeat. Backtracks. Braces herself between slow breaths. “You better grab a brush when you’re done,” Blake huffs but climbs the ladder anyway, fine to give her arms a break from the motions of rolling, and something finite and safe to settle her stare on.

It’s her turn to nearly tumble off the ladder when the side door bursts open in a bang without warning, a brunette woman crashing in with one hand slung over her eyes and another outstretched to feel her way blindly.

“Yang?” the woman calls loudly, turning her head unseeing this way and that, like the hand over her eyes isn’t blocking her vision. “Are you clothed?”

Blake snaps her jaw closed when she realizes it fell open, glad she didn’t tumble clean off the ladder.

“Oh my gods, Ruby, that was _one_ _time_,” Yang groans, poking the girl with the dull end of the roller in her hands. “And Blake lives here now anyway so it’s doubly not going to happen.”

“It was one time too many and I’ll take whatever precautions necessary to avoid it again.” The woman’s hand finally falls away, blinking at the sight of them each with streaks of primer on their faces. She doesn’t seem surprised by it. “Hi, Blake, I’m Ruby.”

Yang cuts her off before Blake can open her mouth to exchange pleasantries. “For fuck’s sake, Ruby, you’re my sister. Seeing me naked shouldn’t be as traumatizing as you make it out to be.”

“Sure, but the shock almost killed me.” Her hands are planted firm on her hips and Blake seems to have been forgotten by both the sisters.

“You’re so dramatic.”

“I’m _sensible_. Who walks around their house naked anyway?”

“Probably people with sisters who actually knock.” Yang pokes her again with the pole and Blake’s not sure whether to laugh or shake her head. Maybe both.

“What are you doing here anyway?” Yang grouses.

“Penny and I need the circular saw, no questions asked. Dad said it’s here.”

Blake wasn’t sure what to expect meeting Ruby, but after living with Yang for less than a month, the exchange seems almost normal. She should probably be more worried about that than she is.

\----

The low days hit like an avalanche, the relief of leaving Adam fading off with a fizzle that does little to keep spooled up anxiety from unraveling. Her struggle over missing him is nothing in the face of this dip her mood takes.

It sneaks up on her, a rolling pressure she tries to write off at first as just exhaustion until she can’t write it off any longer. Until it solidifies, sets up, hardens into something real she tries to remember how to breathe around.

She should’ve seen it coming miles away, shouldn’t feel as disappointed as she is — she knows better than that by now.

But still.

(She thought things could be different now.)

(How naive. Clumsy. Foolish.)

(She should’ve known better.)

But still.

It hurts all the same as it did before, as it always has, to wake up feeling numb. Hollow has never echoed so loud.

It sets in like a sigh, like wasted breath, like a waking dream she can’t shake out of.

She’s not sure how she doesn’t collapse under the pressure to fall in, give out. There are no permits for this.

The first day takes her breath, leaves her chest too empty of air and heartbeats and closure, and all too full of doubt and drowning defeat that drags along this corpse of her relationship.

Wisps of Adam brew to a steeping point, cloudy and dull and impossibly bitter to swallow down. It does nothing to soothe the fear in her head she figured would abate with distance and time. The rational side of her whispers that it hasn’t been that long. The exhausted, wounded part of her rages against the idea of Adam taking up any more of her life.

She’s so tired of abuse being the lens through which she sees the world.

She can feel Yang watching her, tracking her movements, charting changes with soft eyes and sharp attention. But Blake’s warning signs have never been hard to spot, too thinly veiled, so openly bared; the dip in her mood is always accompanied by a landslide of slips she slides into like a second home. She’s not surprised Yang picks up on it so easily, their lives so readily intertwined as they already are. Yang is smart enough to put pieces together and add up the ways Blake’s been pulling back, pulling apart.

It’s a push and pull they both keep watch on. Blake tracks Yang tracking her, a game she’s well-adjusted to by now, a game Yang has no chance of keeping up with.

Her tongue is already well-stocked with excuses and defenses to spit out when prompted, but oddly Yang never presses those lines and Blake never has to fire back.

Still, like so much else about Yang, her face is an open book ripe for reading and Blake can practically lay a finger on dotted lines to conclusions she draws. But very unlike Yang, her loaded comments and questions stay swallowed, silent and stalled; for whose sake, she’s not sure. It isn’t hard to connect facial expressions with thoughts, follow the line to where Blake’s sure she’ll lose her, but Yang never presses and Blake never has to snap to defend.

It’s a game Yang plays better than Blake ever expected, unspoken rules lying spread out between them like fault lines neither one trespasses, a spiderweb of exposures first to step over loses. Yang plays along like it’s something she’s born for.

Even so, haggard hesitance sags on Yang like a double exposure, a ghost of a second coming, shows in the ways she falters before touching, makes herself quieter than she’s ever managed before when Blake has begged for volume control.

Yang hangs cautious and Blake can’t summon the guilt she wants to feel over it, too foggy for clear thoughts or spoken sorries, shuffles it in with all the other ways she’s been falling short lately and can’t make up for. She follows Yang watching her and struggles to replace rubble she’s been tearing down around her, around them, around boundaries she’s long since learned are there for her own safety as much as for others’.

But still, these stallings leave footprints to follow, signs she’s sure won’t slip by unnoticed. Yang is far too persistent, far too observant, far too kind and giving and generous for either of their own goods.

Blake wants to beg her to stop, to step back, to run while she still can, while they both still can, but her voice is swallowed up with everything else she is and so she stays silent, staved off and sorry to have ever let Yang get close enough to see this, to trace out her falling through.

No amount of scraping up her scraps saves her from this fallout, from this obvious falling apart. It’s the first time she’s had to deal with someone being close enough to see through her like this.

It’s not the first time she’s wanted to run.

(But it is the first time she’s wanted to hold her ground, hang on to the progress she’s made here. However little it will matter in the long run. There’s only so much breathlessness she can take. There’s no room for all this extra feeling Yang keeps scraping out in her. It’s not fair. Not enough. Far, far too much.)

All the signs are there, warnings and wardings that do nothing to dissuade Yang from watching, keeping track, piecing shrapnel together to reach a conclusion Blake is helplessly braced against, for her to realize how broken beyond mending Blake is. And still, Yang is quiet. Startlingly quiet.

Her appetite slipping leaves Yang frowning around a fork at the dinner table, Yang’s own emptied plate serving steep contrast against Blake’s barely-touched dinner. When Blake opts out of the offer to watch a movie in Yang’s bed that night — even though Tai finally brought over Yang’s couch the day before — Yang’s disappointment is spelled out clearly in the wrinkle between her brows, a novel of comments and inquiries she leaves thankfully unspoken but Blake reads through anyway, tucks in beside her when she pulls up blankets and curls in on herself that night.

(She can’t help imagine what it would’ve been like to curl up under Yang’s covers instead.)

As the days trickle on, bleak and overbearing like a ticking clock that thought can’t drown out, Blake can barely look at Yang, ashamed over checking out, gutted over not being able to explain, lacking energy and wherewithal and willingness to expose these weak points that teeter on breakings, to give over explanations too clinical to stomach. To hold out in soft palms this vulnerability she hates so much.

What’s worse is that Yang would likely understand, would desperately try to if nothing else. It’s blatantly obvious by the way she positions herself, hangs around like a loose thread. Willing. Hopeful. Too kind for Blake to take advantage of.

What’s worse is that Blake doesn’t want her to understand, doesn’t want to give her the chance to, doesn’t want to spill out all these pieces that leave her feeling less than and broken and bailing water from this sinking in her chest, the drowning in her head.

The static of her mood drowns out all the quiet pacing Yang tip-toes around her.

For once she wishes for loud noise and breakings. Anything to distract her from her own pathetic fracturing.

Yang is softer than ever and Blake is hard enough to cut. She locks herself away to keep from damage she can’t undo.

\----

Helplessness rages in Yang’s chest, a fire in her lungs that bakes away all her understanding of to act, dries out air to make room for the emptiness she watches Blake lug around with her in her closed-off collapse. She aches to know how to help, desperately wants to reach out and make sure Blake hasn’t disappeared, but her hands falter short every time in fear of pressing past boundaries and Yang’s not sure how to be there for her, or if she can be at all.

The change is clear from day one, Blake’s responses all stilted and low and quiet enough Yang strains to hear every word. The difference from her usually dry, smirking replies is stark and lonely. The monotonous shift is obvious in all the ways Blake moves, holds herself, interacted with the world around her like a ghost. It sits unspoken and unbreachable, a flatline like a heartbeat that Yang isn’t even sure how to resuscitate, how to lay measuring fingers on.

Blake’s quiet is worrying — drawn out like hopeless held breath. In the stewing she can read seething under Blake’s skin, her solemn stillness is gravitational, a heavy pulse under Yang’s ribs daunting her nearer, desperate not to lose her.

The set to Blake’s jaw is rigid, sharp like keys in a clenched fist, her eyes dull enough to bruise. She thinks of armor, with the way Blake’s shoulders roll forward, inward, up like hackles drawn braced against the static crackling in her head. Yang tries to make smalltalk, a feeble, fruitless effort, she knows, but something heavy swirls in her to try anyway, won’t let her walk away.

Impossibly, her flat tone is still better than her absence. Empty replies are so much better than the nothing that follows behind.

Deafening loneliness catches Yang off guard when Blake slips away, starts keeping mostly to her room when not at work, and the change leaves hollows in their home Yang had never expected. Blake’s door stands closed to keep Yang out.

(To keep Blake in? Yang’s not really sure. She doesn’t know how to ask, Blake seems unlikely to volunteer.)

Fierce need to help sits stalled at the gate without a route to trail along.

So instead she just tries to minimize bothers — the only thing she can think to do — keeps quiet and tidy and cautious. It feels an awful lot like home felt after her mom died, depression steeped so heavy in the walls and halls and corners it sucks up all the sound, all the constant buzz of life, gone, gone, gone.

She finds herself at Blake’s closed door, knuckles posed to rap against it and doubt dredged deep in her stomach. Fear drags it back down to her side. Walking away feels as wrong as knocking. Dregs of regret are all Yang has to chew on.

Space from Blake isn’t something she expected to be so hard to give, something she hadn't realized she’s grown so unaccustomed to. For so long now Bee has been enough to keep her company, enough to stave off the sense of loneliness living alone once sewed into her veins. She’s not sure why Blake’s made such a difference.

\----

It’s 3pm and Blake hasn’t been able to drag herself out of bed on her day off, turning over and shuffling deeper under blankets every hour or so, the farthest she’s willed herself to move. The light is off and curtains pulled tightly closed to insulate this feeling in her chest. She’s cycled through phases of guilt and shame and frustration more times today than she can count.

It’s a _low_, low day, one of the worst she’s had since moving away from Menagerie and she can’t bring herself to step foot out of her room into the hazard zone this house always feels like.

Yang’s been clattering around since 10am and for once Blake is glad she’s such a loud person, happy she’s finally making noise again, at least one of them able to slip back into their norm.

(Though to be fair it’s still far quieter than Yang’s true norm.)

It takes her a moment to check back into herself when a soft knock on her door sounds, followed by a hesitant call of “Blake?” from the other side.

She swallows and bunches her blankets higher around her, tight in her fists, knees curled close to her chest. She doesn’t answer, doesn’t know how to breach this space caught in her throat.

“Blake?” Yang calls again, sounds a little more worried than cautious now and it’s enough to churn up a renewed sense of guilt.

Without an answer, there’s a long pause before a dull thud sounds against her door, less sharp knuckles and more like a relenting forehead.

“I don’t want to intrude or bother you, but there’s something in my truck I think you’d like to see. It’ll just take a second and then you can come back in.”

Blake swallows the lump in her throat, rolls back the tears that choke up, grits her teeth against an answer still. She can’t bring herself to snap out the “go away” that sits on the edge of her tongue, can’t cough up the warring but weak “please don’t leave” trembling at her bottom lip.

“Please don’t hate me,” Yang says like waving a white flag, voice muffled by the door and distance between them, before Blake hears her doorknob turn and her latch give like a gunshot.

She shrinks in on herself, squints at the light that pours in behind Yang, but watches as she treads timidly past Blake’s threshold carrying a glass of ice water and something Blake can’t make out in the dark.

“Hey,” Yang breathes and it’s the softest Blake’s ever heard Yang cradle a word. She watches Yang’s chest swell and hold, like she’s trying to catch her breath, trying to catch a breath for them both. “It’s okay if you’re not thirsty but I brought you some water just in case. And some M&M’s too in case something sweet sounds good. I know they’re your favorite.”

Every word makes Blake want to sob more than the last. Instead she just squeezes tighter around herself.

She sets both the water and candy on Blake’s bedside table before she drops to the floor beside her bed, back to Blake and legs drawn up to drape her arms across her kneecaps.

Blake can’t see her face but she hears Yang suck in a deep long breath, her shoulders pulled up like she’s holding the universe.

“When I was little, like not even eight yet, my mom passed away and my dad got really depressed. There were a lot of days at the start that he had a really hard time getting out of bed at all. I always hated seeing him like that, always hated him for it. I was so angry at him for giving up, for not fighting harder. But after I lost my arm I had plenty of those days myself, and I suddenly _got_ it in a way I never had before.” She holds up her prosthetic hand in front of her for a moment, opens and closes it, turns it over, squeezes it into a shaking fist before it slowly falls back open. It slides across her cheek like she’s scrubbing at tears.

“I learned that sometimes bad days are unavoidable, that they can grip you tighter than your mind or your resolve, and that the only way out of them is through. I learned that it sucks — that it sucks to feel anything on those days and it feels like it literally sucks, that it’s sucking away all the bright spots inside you and that you feel too heavy to stop it. I learned that fighting it almost always feels futile. But I also learned that fighting doesn’t have to look like what I always thought it did.”

Blake’s cheeks are scattered with wet tracks as Yang turns around, rests her chin on the top of Blake’s mattress and takes her in. Her eyes are soft and bereft of all the pity Blake expects to find waiting there, warm understanding flickering like firelight. It draws her in, moth to flame, shadow clinging to the edges of light.

“I know getting up probably feels impossible right now, and maybe it is. I also know there’s a tiny bright spot outside this room for you to see that this sucking feeling can’t erase. If you aren’t willing, I can’t make you get up. But if you’re curious, I’d love to show it to you. You can even bring the blanket.” She tugs at a corner of the blanket that’s free from Blake’s death-grip.

And then Yang stands, not waiting for Blake’s reply or lack of one. She expects Yang to hover while she fumbles to find a voice to answer, but instead Yang trails back to the doorway and reaches for the handle, hangs hesitantly against the frame looking back at her like the first day she showed Blake the house.

“You don’t have to decide just now but I’ll be around if you’re up for it. If not, that’s okay. It’ll be there tomorrow.”

She closes the door behind her and Blake lets out all the heavy she’s held in, hot tears that she dammed up while Yang spoke to her, an outpouring of sobs she tries to break over knuckles she presses to her mouth, can barely stifle them.

It takes her an hour to reach for the M&M’s and water.

It takes another hour before she stumbles to her door, fuzzy blue blanket wrapped around her like a cocoon trailing behind her, gathering dust and dirt on her way to find Yang quietly making dinner in the kitchen.

Yang only glances at her and sheds a quick smile as Blake wanders in and leans against the kitchen counter for support, feels like collapsing in on herself again already.

“Stew will be ready in just a bit, if you’re hungry.”

Blake shrugs noncommittally, not sure if she could stomach real food right now or not.

“What’s in your truck?” Her voice comes out coarse and low on the first words she’s managed today.

Yang grins at her, toothy and too bright for a day like today. “C’mon, I’ll show ya.”

She rinses her hands and towels them off before offering an open palm to Blake, tries to coax her along, a halo of warm support beside her when Blake hesitantly takes it.

Yang leads her out the side door, pausing and turning back to steady blanketed legs down the couple of steps to the driveway before drawing Blake toward the truck’s passenger side door.

Blake fights feeling defensive, skeptical and bristling as they go, moody frustration sharp in search for anything to lash out at. She squeezes her fist under the blanket draped over her shoulders feeling petulant and childish, feeling already ready to retreat back to bed.

She opens her mouth to snap at Yang, to slip her held hand back and withdraw, but the words falter as Yang pulls them up short between Blake’s car and Yang’s truck and gives Blake a long look of careful considering.

Through the window she can see a large cardboard box in the seat, taller than it is wide, folded over flaps shielding whatever’s inside. Blake’s patience drips dry as Yang opens the door and pulls the box out. It looks lighter in her arms than Blake expected.

“I would’ve brought it inside already but I didn’t want it just sitting there for you to stumble onto without warning. I went by Weiss’ this morning to pick it up for you. She said it might cheer you up to see them.”

An endless slew of questions pile up the longer Yang explains before she sets the box between them and crouches to pry the flaps open.

Blake’s breath catches, stomach dropping at the same time her jaw does. Yang dips her head a little to peer up at Blake’s reaction and it’s all too much, the world suddenly spinning. A desperate hand against the side of Yang’s truck does little to balance her even as she reaches to draw out one of the handful of canvases neatly stacked on end within the box.

They’re hers. Paintings she thought she’d never see again after Adam insisted on not bothering to bring along all her “school crap” when they moved.

Her eyes blur, swimming against a wash of things she’s too overwhelmed to sort through, can’t see through thick tears that obscure the bleeding ocean sunset stroked over the canvas. She had hated it when she first painted it, frustrated at how it wasn’t quite right, didn’t capture the snapshot memory of Menagerie Blake had tried to recall. But now, holding this little forgotten piece of home she had tried to reconstruct, even swallowed behind distorting tears, it’s closer to the real thing than any memory Blake has left.

Her thumb circles the side of the canvas, taken in by the texture she clings to to ground her, suddenly too caught up to keep staring at it. Her hands shake as she sets it back in the box but it’s nothing compared to the way they quiver when she sees the canvas behind it.

Fuck.

“Yang, I-” She feels her knees give out but Yang lurches to grab her, swooping in to catch her before she slips away, holds her up before she can collapse.

“I’ve got you,” Yang assures softly and Blake crumbles at the hold, a breaking flood of tears inside to out ripping her downstream, and before she knows what’s happening Yang’s hauled her feet off the ground and is carrying Blake back inside.

“But the box,” she tries between choking heaves.

“Shhhh, I’ll come back to get it.” Yang’s lips press to the hair sticking to her temple, a hushed chorus of “I’ve got you,” spilling out on repeat, and Blake feels herself shake and sob harder every time.

She’s not sure how Yang manages to get the door open without putting her down or dropping her but she only grunts and shifts Blake a little as they pass over the threshold and then Yang’s laying her gently onto the living room couch, tucking her blanket more fully around her before retreating back outside with a quick “be right back.”

There’s a coffee table in front of the couch Blake hasn’t noticed before today and she wonders vaguely if she’s been so out of it she just hasn’t noticed or if it’s a new addition Yang put in place since yesterday.

When she’s back through the door with the box in hand, Yang hesitates a moment by the couch before seeming to make up her mind, settles it on the coffee table. The sides of it are too tall for Blake to see over, something she’s thankful for right now with how fragile she’s feeling and how hard she’s struggling to catch her breath against waves of tears.

Yang perches flush beside Blake on the couch before scooping her arms back under and around her, drawing Blake smoothly cradled into Yang’s lap. Blake can’t find the energy to be offended at being treated so much like an upset toddler right now.

Yang rocks them both, trades careful words out in favor of humming a soft tune that Blake can feel vibrating in Yang’s chest tucked against it as she is. The sound wraps around her nerves like swaddling and her harsh sobs dwindle into shudders before settling into hiccups. The seizing storm inside her head subsides with the receding tide.

“What’re you humming?” she manages to mumble out after a series of deep breaths that threaten to shatter her again, the edges in her calm brittle and frayed.

“It’s something my mom used to sing for me when I was upset, then something I used to sing for Ruby when she was upset. It’s one of the few clear memories I have left of Summer. She would sit me in her lap a lot like this,” Yang gives Blake a squeeze, “and rock me in an old recliner I used to nap in. My dad still has it in his living room, actually.”

“’S nice,” Blake breathes against Yang’s collarbones, eyes lidded heavy, feeling uncomfortably like a child but unable to bring herself to crawl out of Yang’s lap just yet, her touch more soothing than Blake wants to admit.

A piece of Yang’s hair tickles Blake’s cheek. She catches it between her fingers and lets it slide between her knuckles, wraps it absently around them as her mind reels out and she tries to pull herself back in.

“Sorry I’m a mess.”

Yang shrugs. “It’s okay to be a mess. It’s when you start blocking people out that your mess becomes a not-okay mess. You don’t have to be a mess alone, Blake.”

“Easy for you to say,” she mumbles defensively. “You’re not a mess.”

Yang laughs. It doesn’t sound genuine. “Maybe I’m just better at hiding it than most people. Maybe you haven’t hung around long enough to find out. Maybe I’m a huge hypocrite who tries to deal with my own mess all alone as well.”

Blake pulls back, takes Yang in, surveys her sharp and slow and carefully. Her heart beats harder than it has any right to at the thought of Yang holding any fraction of the feelings Blake’s been drowning in. It wouldn’t be right. She’s far too good a person for the world to do wrong like that. “Yang, I-“

But whatever she’s not sure she was going to summon up gets cut short with a shake of Yang’s head and another sharp squeeze of her arms. “We all deal with our messes differently, Blake, and I’m not going to try to tell you how you should or shouldn’t deal with yours. Just– in the future, know that if leaning on me can help with it, I’m here. You don’t have to be alone.”

“Neither do you.” It’s too much. She knows it as soon as she says it, can feel it in her own stiffening muscles and Yang’s matching ones as well.

She fights the urge to run, desperately wants to take the words back even though she means them, even though she’s not really sure what she means by them. Instead, she clears her throat and reaches for something else to say. “Your hair is really soft,” she mumbles, focusing on the ends of it between her fingers before twirling it back around them.

She feels Yang relax a little, shift to look down at her, but Blake can’t look up to meet her eye. “Thanks.” Her voice is hesitant like she wants to say more and Blake lets the silence sit between them. “I uh, don’t usually let people touch my hair, to be honest.”

“Oh.” Blake drops the lock and shrinks back, drawing her hands under the covers to keep out of trouble.

“No, it’s okay. I trust you with it. Even if you do throw drywall dust at me.” Her playful jab falls a little short but Blake’s unspeakingly grateful for the effort. She knows Yang’s been trying, desperately trying, to reach her, to help.

Blake heaves a sigh and turns to face Yang, catches the frown that dips at her lips as she watches Blake. “Why are you so nice?”

Yang snorts and shifts Blake a little in her lap. “My dad taught me to be kind to everyone until they give me a reason not to be. I like being good to people who deserve it. I like helping, feeling needed.” Her hand draws the blanket closer around Blake. “Fixing things, I guess. It makes me feel like I’m doing something right with my life, something worthwhile. It probably helps that I know it’d make Summer proud.” Yang’s flash of a smile leaves Blake hanging on to her words, remembers the ones from earlier about Yang’s mom passing away.

“What was she like?” she asks, hoping she’s not crossing unwelcome topics.

Yang’s smile sticks longer this time, eyes a little distant and Blake waits, quietly content to just watch, heartbeats of silence soothing for the first time in days.

“It sounds a little cheesy, but she was like super mom, baking cookies with us and doing crafts and making up these all stupid songs for everything. I was awful at baking but I’d always help her cook and she’d always let me even when I messed things up. She played piano and the house was never quiet when she was alive. After dinner she’d sit down to play music for us and dad would dance around the living room with me and Ruby standing on his feet. It’s like, the happiest I think I’ve ever been.”

The ache in Yang’s throat is obvious, heavy and hurting, and Blake shuffles in her lap, stretches to wrap Yang in the blanket as well, isn’t sure how exactly to be here for her. It’s not something Blake has a lot of experience with. She tries anyway. “She sounds amazing. I’m sure she’d be happy to know you remember her like that. I’m sorry you were so young when she died.” It’s probably not the right thing to say but Blake isn’t sure what is. If anything is.

“It’s okay.” Yang swallows, frowning. “I mean, it’s not, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? She was big on looking at the positives in life so that’s what I try to do. I miss her a lot — like a lot more than I figured I would by now — but talking about her is nice, remembering her. And Ruby — gods, Ruby is so much like her. It’s really neat to see sometimes even if it’s kind of bittersweet. She’s just so cheerful and loud and smart. It’s totally like mom. Not to mention this smile she does when she’s really content.” Yang snorts, a grin twisting her lips as she fiddles with the end of the blanket around her. “I wish Ruby could’ve known her more. I wish I could’ve too.” She sniffles and scrubs the back of her hand across her nose, eyes glassy and far away and the distance between them — so small in proximity but so far in their heads — it’s never felt larger.

“I know it’s pointless to think about but sometimes I just wish I could go back and relive a day with her, just to hear her laugh or sing. Just to tell her how much I love her, tell her thanks for being such a great mom.” She lets out a humorless laugh. “Fuck knows not everyone has a good mom, loads of them suck. I know I was lucky even if it was short lived.” There’s that far-away look again, hanging whole and heavy in her eyes.

Blake clears her throat, hoping her voice won’t be too thick from tears, will be loud enough to hear, finds a piece of herself to offer up in giving as she pulls herself out of Yang’s lap long enough to reach the cardboard box and retrieve the canvas slotted behind the scene of Menagerie. She heaves a breath, looking it over before coming back to sit beside Yang, settling the painting across both their laps.

“I had to do this self-portrait for an assignment my junior year at Beacon. I’ve always hated doing self-portraits so I don’t really know why I did it like this, made so much more work for myself, but it turned out to be my favorite thing I’ve ever painted. I think it’s because, in this middle one, it looks more like my mom than me.”

Admittedly, looking back, she knows why she painted it like this, anything to push back against assignments that frustrated her. Technically, it is a self-portrait. But the edges of the canvas are lined by the painted, thick frame of a broken mirror that’s split into shards, each piece large enough to hold their own little reflection of younger versions of Blake staring back at her.

It’s surreal to be holding this, something she’d thought lost long ago, something she figured she’d never see again. It had taken her ages to finish but it’s something she’s always been proud of.

Her hair is shorter in the middle slice of mirror than all the rest, only down to her chin and wavier than usual with the weight of length no longer pulling it straight.

And gods, she looks so much like her mom it hurts, another little piece of rebellion she had slipped in at the time, close enough to pass as herself but different enough Blake could never hiccup past it.

“This is breathtaking, Blake. Like seriously, this is incredible.” Yang’s hand holds the side of the painting reverently and Blake watches her eyes soak the image in.

Instinctively she shrugs off the compliment, smiling tightly as she rolls a shoulder. “Thanks. It’s- it was a long time ago. I haven’t even touched a paint brush in years.”

“Well we’ll have to change that. Talent like this deserves an outlet.” Yang’s too close when she turns to look at Blake, eyes skimming over her face and Blake pulls back to stare at the picture again. “If you want to, I mean,” Yang adds softly, tender and timid and leaning back to put some space between them again.

“Yeah, I’d like to.” She clears her throat, gathers up the blanket around her and mumbles something about getting water.

\----

Blake sits with Yang for dinner that night, quiet but easy, a soft return. She makes sure to thank Yang for cooking and helps herself to seconds of cornbread. It’s late much later than they usually eat and the weight of the day hangs heavy on each of them.

Afterword Blake does the dishes while Yang talks about some game night she’s supposed to host next Wednesday, throwing it out there so casually it takes Blake a moment to realize Yang’s checking if that’s fine with her.

“It’s your house, Yang. Of course you can have friends over.”

“It’s your house too, though,” Yang asserts, shooting Blake a firm look, eyebrows bunched and mouth turned down. “And with how tough things have been lately I just wanted to make sure it wouldn’t bother you. And wanted to ask if you’d like to join us.”

Something in her chest pulls a little at the thought, apprehension and excitement knitted into one. “I actually have an evening shift then but I should be first out so I might sit in if I feel up to it.” It’s all she can give, all she feels anywhere close to comfortable enough committing to, but Yang lights up like she’s been promised the moon and Blake can’t bring herself to think about opting out now.

“Great. Awesome. You’re gonna love everyone. I mean, you’ve already met Ruby, and Weiss will be there too, but yeah, it’ll be good.”

She resolves to put in at least an appearance Wednesday no matter how tired she is after work, anything to pay off Yang’s obvious excitement, her rambling.

Yang just stands grinning at her for a few long moments before giving herself a shake and taking a couple wandering steps back. “Anyway, I uh- I think I’m gonna head to bed.” She thumbs over her shoulder like Blake doesn’t know where she sleeps. “I hope you’re feeling a little better. I’ll see you tomorrow?” The question is posed tentatively, testing waters.

There’s a thawing numbness in Blake’s chest that leaves her nodding readily, a heart full of heavy that’s been slowly drawn off today. “Yeah. And thanks — for today. For the paintings and water and M&M’s and talking. Sorry I’ve been…” She motions at herself vaguely, doesn’t know what else to say.

“Don’t worry about it. Some days are diamonds and then there’s all the rest,” Yang shrugs. “Just try to get some rest, Blake.”

“Thanks. I will.”

Bumblebee stays with Blake in the kitchen, company to her quiet thoughts. It’s hard to not bury herself in them and recede again, lose traction, but she dries the last plate and shuffles into the living room to regroup.

The thought of Yang ending up on Blake’s floor by her bed again tomorrow leaves her clawing to hang on, humming a tune that belongs more to Yang than to her, a song Yang kindly gave Blake a piece of in desperate hope to close distances Blake’s been drawing up.

She sits on the couch alone for a bit after Yang goes to bed, thinks about parents and paintings and pianos, about remembering and reliving. Bumblebee sets her head in Blake’s lap and she absently gets lost in the feeling of fur under her fingertips, caught up in weighing a thought she hasn’t considered in years.

Swallowing, she gets up and heads for the backyard door, Bee shooting out the dog door to beat her there.

The night air is mild and fresh as she heaves a long breath to steady her head. She settles herself into one of two deck chairs out here, props her feet against the slats of the wooden rail lining the small porch and bites her lip against nerves.

A breeze sifts against her skin as she stares up at the fat, glowing moon overhead and thinks about tides pulling at her, about beaches and salt water and a place she’s not sure she gets to call home anymore.

Her hands shake as she pulls out her phone and scrolls down to a contact she hasn’t touched in years.

It rings three times before a voice answers.

“Hello?” It’s late — both here and there — but the voice is clear and awake, calm and chiming. It holds the breath in Blake’s lungs hostage. “Hello?” the voice repeats a little louder.

“Mom?” It comes out a question, was never a question, hangs in Blake’s chest like the warm remembering Yang drew out for her by unfolding a box top.

“Blake?” Her mom’s voice sounds caught, as caught as she herself feels, as breathless and flimsy and breaking. “Blake, honey?”

“I’m here,” she manages to choke out, voice full of gravel and tears, chest full of fears, head full of lies in a voice Blake runs from every night. “I- I’m sorry for calling so late.” It has so many layers of meaning; she wonders if her mom hears that too.

“It’s never too late for you to call.”

She wants that to be true, crumbles a little at the double meaning stacked in her mom’s words back.

“I’m here anytime you need. Oh sweetie, you don’t know how happy I am to hear your voice.”

Blake chews on a heavy sob. She grinds her teeth against it, pushes her knuckles to her mouth to keep it in. “I’ve missed you.” It’s all she can carve out to say, doesn’t know where to start, doesn’t know how to, where to begin trying to rebuild a bridge she’s left so broken, abandoned.

“We’ve missed you so much.” The tears in her mom’s voice are obvious and Blake curls her feet up under her to cope, to shrink back small enough her guilt might not see her. “We’ve never given up hope that you’d call when you were ready.”

Was she ready? She feels like she’s drowning, unable to tread this water rushing up under the flimsy rope bridge she’s trying to tie, doesn’t know how to secure anything against the breath she can’t catch and the hanging in her chest she’s been suffocating under for days.

She thinks of Yang, of reliving one day, of remembering. Of being lucky and thankful for what she has. She thinks of a mom who’s still alive to reach out to.

“I’m so sorry, mom. I’m so so sorry.” This collapse is different, a wreckage years in the making, collateral damage and clearing. She lets it go, lets it come, allows it to wash over her like a tide she gives herself back to. “I shouldn’t have left — I should have come back — I-I didn’t know what to do.” It all comes out a mess of words she’s sure are hardly recognizable but it’s all she can manage and they keep tumbling out, tripping and treading water.

“Shhhh. It’s okay. It’s okay, sweetheart. You’re okay.” But it’s not, hasn’t been for so many years and she’s owed her parents so much better than this for so long.

She thinks of home baked cookies she never ate and after-dinner piano songs.

Thinks of bedtime stories she had years of, of growing up too soon but getting to hold on, of a chance to regain something irreplaceable that she lost, that she left.

She thinks of being lucky and loved. Thinks of home and knows where to find it, of parents who haven’t let her down, of a phone call she can make and one Yang can’t.

“I love you. I love you both so much and- and I hate myself for not calling sooner, for ever leaving. It was so wrong, everything after was so, so wrong.”

“Come home, Blake. We can come get you, wherever you are.”

“I can’t—” But why not? It would be so easy, so blessedly wonderful to go home for the first time in years, to see her parents, be in Menagerie again, to be somewhere she belongs.

But that doesn’t sit right. Not yet. Because in some small ways she’s finding she can belong here too, has found footprints she fits into, places with friends carved out just for her, a safe haven to land all her own.

“I want to visit — soon — but I think- I think I need to keep going here, to do this on my own. I think it’s something I need to do to be okay again.”

The silence on the other end of the phone stretches long enough Blake checks to make sure the call hasn’t dropped.

“Okay.” It’s the sound of hard drawn acceptance, of trust, of faith in her she’s never deserved.

She stays on the phone for almost an hour, holding this line of home in her hands, hearing her mom’s voice comfort her from far away.

She thinks of Yang and wonders how she grew up to be so strong without this.

\----

She isn’t sure what exactly drives her to be standing outside Yang’s closed door after she hangs up with her mom. The sight alone is an odd one, and suddenly Blake can’t remember ever seeing Yang’s door closed before, always left open at night for Bee to let herself out if need be.

Her fingers feel cold closing around the doorknob and the mirroring of Yang coming into her room earlier today isn’t lost on her.

Her knuckles rap against the door a few times, loud off the quiet of an early night for this house, Yang usually ramping up for her second wind at this hour. Her bedroom light had only flickered off only about ten minutes ago, the disappearing, soft glow behind Yang’s bedroom curtains having caught Blake’s eye from her vantage on the porch.

She hates the idea that she’s waking Yang and hopes she hasn’t gotten to sleep yet. Then a worse interruption occurs to her, leaves her suddenly cringing then at the thought of disturbing some possible “me time” Yang might be taking, explanation for the closed door. Blushing, she wishes she could take back the knock and draws away from the door a few steps.

“Blake?”

Ah, well. No backing out now.

She flicks off the hall light so she doesn’t blind Yang — and so she can’t see in — before opening the door a crack to try to walk back this awkward fumbling. She opens her mouth to apologize but snaps it shut when she hears a teary sniffle and shuffle of blankets.

“Yang?” She can’t see through the pitch black that faces her, for better or worse, as she opens the door a creak more.

“Yeah?” Yang’s voice is thick, leaves Blake swallowing back her own reason for being here.

“Sorry, I uh, I shouldn’t have knocked. I was just—” she cuts off, clears her throat. “It doesn’t matter. Sorry.” She draws back, pulls the door with her, digs a grave for her embarrassment.

“Blake, it’s okay. What’s wrong?”

And this is how Yang’s weaseled her way into Blake’s chest, how she’s set up camp here and traded out trust. Because Yang is lying there clearly upset, clearly having chosen to be alone in it, but is more worried about Blake than about taking care of herself.

“Nothing. It’s stupid, I just—” She heaves a breath and forces herself to hold her ground, to at least explain even if she feels dumb for it. “I just didn’t want to sleep alone tonight.” It’s as much as she can manage to admit, hopes it’s enough to answer, hopes it’s not too weird to say.

There’s another soft shifting of blankets wrapped heavy over a pause that leaves Blake to add guilt to that grave, herself to be thrown in next.

“C’mere.”

She hesitates for a long moment, caught between feeling like an intrusion and feeling like a coward. But then, Yang seemed to hint earlier that she shares Blake’s bad habit of trying to handle her mess on her own, of not letting others in, and this is an invitation she probably shouldn’t take for granted, a way she might give back to Yang for being there today.

She stumbles blindly across the room on her way to finding the edge of the bed but Yang’s eyes seem adjusted enough to guide her into it once she’s there. The bed is as wickedly soft as she remembers. Yang’s arms wrapping around her seem somehow even more so.

She tucks her head against Yang’s shoulder, into blonde curls that tickle her nose, and she tries not to be obvious in the way her muscles give out, give in at being held like this. It feels startlingly natural the way her own arms pull Yang in closer but she left behind hiding from this before she even knocked at the door and doesn’t shrug off the affection that fills her up. Instead she buries her face deeper into Yang’s hair and squeezes her side like Yang squeezed her earlier on the couch.

“I got you,” Yang whispers, like her own throat isn’t the one coated from tears she’s trying to cut off, like she’s not the one who deserves to be comforted here.

“You don’t have to be alone either,” Blake reiterates across the short, looming distance, more terrified of not giving this to Yang than she is of keeping it to herself.

Yang freezes again, all stiff muscles and caught breath for long moments that leave Blake’s heart ready to thunder out of her chest, ready to rage against Yang hiding her own mess.

“Let’s just go to sleep,” is all Yang says, sniffles sharply and her muscles loosen up too slowly. “Please.”

“Yeah, okay. Try to get some rest.”

There’s enough left unsaid she shouldn’t fall asleep as fast as she does but Yang is warm and everything is soft and Blake’s chest feels a little emptied out of this ache that’s been crushing her. Yang breathing evening out is enough to let Blake soften into sleep right behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments? Questions? Rude remarks? Drop me a line below to share your thoughts.


	4. game night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry it’s taken forever to update this. I lost a few thousand words of it not long after posting chapter 3 and then life got busy with the holidays. I hope you guys haven’t given up on this story. I promise I haven’t given up on it either.

Armed with roller and brush, Yang helps Blake paint over the bland tan in her room, washing it away stroke by stroke. Sunlight through blind slats peels away at the hovering fog in Blake’s head, burning off lingering storm clouds that are finally letting up. Finger by finger she pries herself free from their clinging grasp.

It’s not until they’ve finished the room - all Blake’s furniture and things pushed to the center and draped under a drop cloth for protection from drips - that Blake realizes how much the light purple color reminds her of Yang’s eyes. It takes them gleaming back at her, glowing with pride and easy happiness, for the similarity to dawn on her. She hopes Yang hasn’t noticed. 

It’s easy to break away from Yang’s stare, burn busy gathering up their paint supplies to wash out rather than dwell in this growing thing that’s somehow settled between them.

(It’s easier to break away than it is to linger in it.)

Her eyes habitually skim over their progress as she goes down the hall toward the kitchen, roller and paint brush in hand to be drowned in the sink, scrubbed free and clear of paint. 

The ceiling is still so noticeably different without popcorn scattering dotted shadows over it, now all patched up and healed over with its fresh coat of paint. The four inch wide gaps where the kitchen walls used to be (she knows they’re four inches because Yang’s constant babble about construction has taught her that walls are usually roughly four inches wide) outline the end of their mudding, the kitchen still a scatter of scars waiting to be filled.

Even broken and imperfect, it stands such a beautiful contrast, a show of how much work they’ve put in, how much better the mended space looks.

Sliced into stark separation by the gaps from the walls, the ceiling looks like a before and after photo.

And sure, there’s still so much more for them to do, a long checklist of projects Yang keeps Blake updated on, but the house has come so far and looks so much better already. It’s exciting to see, beautiful and soothing to be a part of, the space around them a living, breathing piece of their days.

Even in disarray, the house is already coming together.

\----

The house is an absolute wreck. There’s no way around that fact.

There are still shallow ruts in the floor from the kitchen walls coming down, grooves wide enough people could trip over even with the make-shift planks she’s place there to run interference. She doesn’t exactly trust her friends to be mindful of their surroundings, especially if they’re drunk or high or both - even Ruby’s not known for stepping carefully for that matter, no matter how many construction zones she’s been raised around.

Thankfully the living and dining room parts of the ceiling are freshly painted, pristine and covering a multitude of sins she carved into it as she rid the house of the last of the popcorn ceiling, but the kitchen ceiling still stands scarred and patchy, twin grooves reflecting above their counterparts in the floor, marking where the framing was torn free, as yet unpatched and taped over.

She hasn’t had time to cut new drywall to fill the spaces in the ceiling, and only hopes the temporary spacers in the floor will keep her friends from succumbing to careless footsteps some of them are prone toward. Ren and Weiss will be fine, likely Pyrrha too, but Jaune is practically sure to be stumbling at some point tonight and there’s no chance Nora won’t catch a toe once she’s drunk. 

She meant to have the gaps completely checked off, edges sured up before having anyone over, but game night snuck up on her preoccupied mind and after missing last week, she wasn’t ready to pass up on it again so soon. Even if it’s her turn to host and her house currently poses a threat to both intoxicated friends’ well-being and her ego.

It’s enough to leave Yang chewing the skin on the inside of her cheek.

And that’s not even mentioning the weight of knowing how this multitude of annoyances are surely adding up around Blake.

Gods, Blake.

Yang grimaces as she wipes down the dining room table, chews on apprehension, rolls her neck. Blake was a whole other piece of this mayhem to juggle.

Having to remember a roommate and take her into consideration with each step of this project was not something Yang had originally counted on, a constant challenge to shuffle around to keep from completely alienating her. It’s been too long since she’s had to worry about another person constantly in her space, factor that into how she navigates daily. It’s definitely never been a part of her construction projects.

And sure, on the surface it’s been wonderful. Company is something she always craves, uses to tie down restless nerves and squirming extroversion, something she ends up aching for any time she goes too long without.

Maybe if this house wasn’t such a work in progress that’d be an easy part of herself to reclaim. A friendly piece of her persona to slip back into, fit on like worn gloves. 

Instead, every day feels like inconveniences intruding into another person’s world, pressing boundaries, pried up troubles like protruding nails eager to catch skin, like grooves in the floor and a couch that only just arrived and dog hair on every surface and dust constantly settling everywhere. Like reasons not to stay.

It’s a list of imperfections that keep mounting despite efforts to push them down, despite her rushing attempts to check them off so she can hold on to this tiny piece of sunshine she gets to live with for now. This little glimmer of a person who’s slowly peaking out of a cracking shell. Yang’s not exactly sure when that became her real project here.

Her undeniable attachment to Blake is something she’s had no way to calculate for, a moving target she spends just as much time trying to ignore as she spends wrapped up wondering about. It’s been unnerving how easily Yang’s let herself unwind around Blake, how natural it feels to fall open around her. It’s terrifying. It’s a little intoxicating.

She tries to soak it in every second she can, hurry through an impossible checklist of renovations like it’s a countdown she can’t keep pace with, anything she can do to scratch through reasons Blake might be finding Yang is too much to live with, reasons Blake might silently be marking down as cause to leave.

She’s been so patient so far it can’t last much longer, even pitching in more than Yang ever figured she’d be willing to, far above and beyond the assistance Yang originally proposed Blake lend. 

Admittedly — stupidly — it’s been _ exciting _ to have someone to share this with, someone who’s eager to see all these steps come together to build a staircase toward a shared end goal. She hasn’t lived inside a working project since gutting the kitchen at Home Base with her dad and Rubes, but even counting that, working as a team has never felt so rewarding, so exciting. 

So right.

Blake’s willingness to try her hand at things, to rip walls down and tear out studs like it’s nothing out of the ordinary… Fuck, if that alone hasn’t left Yang a little smitten. Her nonchalance about it all has been invigorating, her brazen trust in Yang’s direction a gift of it’s own Yang hasn’t failed to recognize, treasured and tripping up her stifled feelings constantly.

Because what the fuck is she supposed to do with this privilege?

How is she supposed to not fuck this up?

Her phone _ pings _ her back to reality with a text from Ruby announcing she’ll be here soon.

Automatically Yang snaps on the mask of a smile despite the lack of an audience, tucks her nerves back down out of sight where they belong and barrels through all these messy feelings. Layers and layers and layers she sheds. Too much to work through and nothing worth anyone’s time.

She shrugs it away, like that will make a difference. She cracks her neck and frowns at the dusty cloth in her hand, leaves it on the table to drag fingers roughly through her hair.

Bee noses the hanging hand not tangled in her hair, serves to remind her of things more worth her attention than her bubbling self-criticism.

“Hey, sweet girl,” she hums, drops to a crouch to give Bee’s chest a proper scratching. “You excited for us to have company over? Weiss is going to be here soon. I know how much you love her. Make sure you leave lots of fur all over whatever she’s wearing, alright girl?”

Bee simply lies down, rolls over, and wags, a back paw kicking at air as Yang hits a sweet spot on her belly.

A genuine smile creeps up on Yang, chasing off worry with a simple tumbling tail, a reminder of a love she’s earned, someone she comes in first with every time. Something she doesn’t have to be so preoccupied with losing.

For a few long moments she allows herself to get lost in this, breathe without spiraling judgment, outpacing harsh thoughts and the running checklist firing through her head. It’s a familiar exercise for her by now, breaking off from reality for a bit in favor of wrapping herself in the validating comfort Bee constantly offers. Her unparalleled adoration Yang tries to swallow whole without choking on while her own stupid, sharp objections swirling in the background like a chorus of not worthy, not worthy, not worthy.

Her right hand quivers. She squeezes it into a yellow fist, digs up a disbelief she plays along with to fight back.

_ I’m enough, _ she thinks back weakly.

She still doesn’t believe it yet but the hollow mantra circles anyway, a flimsy remnant leftover from counseling she’s mostly forgotten by now.

It does nothing for the bite of doubt bubbling in her head. Reason falls under the weight of insecure worry. 

The room around her seems to tilt a little as her blood starts pounding loudly in her ears, heart beating hard enough in her chest she can see it through her shirt. A flushing pressure races up her neck, spreads out inch by inch over her shoulders and chest, down to the tips of her fingers. Breath abandons her. Panic settles there in its place. 

The sound of a car door slamming outside barely makes it through the sudden spinning in her head, the front door peeling open follows along unsung. She sits unstirring, trying to hang on to this ledge of control she’s tipping over.

“Yang?” Ruby’s voice sounds far off, threaded with enough worry Yang’s pretty sure she’s not holding together as well as she wants to be.

Her breath is even shakier than her hand was a moment ago as she draws in to reply and it stalls in her lungs. It does nothing to help the pinholed vision taking up all her focus, air faltering thinly through her teeth without words attached.

Vaguely she feels the press of fur against her cheek, the weight of Bee settling into her lap. A canine whine. A wet tongue to her cheek. 

When did she sit down?

She collapses further in on herself, hanging over the solid animal in her arms.

“Okay, can you take a deep breath with me?”

A hand on her back traces up it in a slow drawl, down in an even slower one. “Inhale. One, two, three, four, five...” The numbers trail and Yang tries to follow along. 

The hand ghosts from tip of her spine to the small of her back in pace with Ruby’s counting. Grasping desperately to find some sort of grounding, she tries to drag in breaths, feels so far away it’s hard to connect effort to her body, hopes she’s breathing remotely in time.

“Exhale. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven…” The hand follows back down, trailing breath with it.

That sickening pressure still threatens to crush her chest, but it’s grip starts to recede ever so slightly in a race against her breath fanning out. But no amount of telling herself it’s not real does anything to stop the daunting sense of drowning, makes it feel any less real in its squeezing weight or the dizzy lack of up and down that’s dissolved around her.

Distantly she tries to keep up with Ruby’s continued guided breathing, an effort that feels laughably futile, but she tries. Tries to hold on. Tries to grasp at anything that’s not doing its best to drag her under. Breathing through water, holding together through washing waves, vaguely she’s aware of one hand in fur and the other clutching to Ruby’s squeezing palm.

It takes time for her to resurface, a whole eternity to follow bubbles of grounding far enough to tread water, to catch hollow breath that slowly fills back out into something real, something manageable.

It’s several minutes before Ruby’s seems sure Yang’s stable enough to slip away from, scurries around to grab a glass of cool water that she presses into Yang’s palm with a soft, “Whenever you’re ready.”

Her hand still shakes as she raises the glass to her sweaty temple. The cold of the cup against her head is blissfully settling, smooth and solid and stable. Everything she’s not right now.

It’s a bit before she can stomach drinking.

She works her way through the glass slow sips at a time, all too conscious of how much it felt like she was drowning just a bit ago, not eager to welcome real water into her lungs any time soon. But the cool feeling drizzles down her throat like silk and settles against the gaps that broke her down in the first place, tries to fill her back up.

“Can we go for a walk?” Her voice is thick, gravelly and grave, but it’s the best she can do. Bee’s head in her lap perks up at the magic word and reflexively tugs Yang’s lips into a small smile despite the way amusement slips through her fingers right now.

“Of course.” Ruby’s hand on Yang’s knee gives a tight squeeze, another point to anchor her.

It takes barely a shifting of drawn muscles for Bee to shoot out of Yang’s lap, scurrying toward the door with an excited whine where she sits fidgeting, a bundle of zealous anticipation as well behaved as she can stand to be at the dangling promise of a walk outside.

“Would you grab her leash from the hook?” Yang asks as she shuffles up from the floor, wipes off dust from the seat of her pants the kitchen floor has likely caked across them. She feels lightheaded but she pushes it away, pushes through it, squeezes her eyes shut and rests a slack palm against the table to steady herself.

The sharp, metallic clip of the leash closing on Bee’s collar is familiar and grounding, another point to lean on, sings her home a little deeper into her skin. She leaves the empty glass of water on the table beside the cloth she’s been dusting with and is glad she already has her shoes on.

The sun is too bright outside to suit her for once but the company makes up for it. Ruby babbles and Yang lets her, doesn’t try to keep up beyond noncommittal hums and bobbing her head. Ruby doesn’t seem to mind. Bumblebee patters proudly between them.

It takes a while to settle back into herself but the walk around the neighborhood rejuvenates her, shakes her out of her head and back into the present more fixedly. Ruby doesn’t ask what happened and she doesn’t try to explain, isn’t even sure herself what exactly set it off beyond her usual feelings of inadequacy. She hasn’t had an attack like that in a while, can't help but feel sickly aware how much worse it could’ve been.

Small blessings.

She counts them anyway, and breath by breath she walls her doubts back up.

By the time they circle back to the house she’s pieced an easy facade back together, ready to face company.

\----

Bee shoots out the dog door as soon as they’re back in the house and her leash is unhooked, firing off toward her yard to make a perimeter check in case anything happened to have changed during the short stint they were gone. She hurtles back through the door, flap slapping behind her, moments before Yang hears car doors outside thudding shut. 

By the four count of the closing doors, Yang’s not surprised when Nora bursts loudly through the side door with a shouted “Hey,” and without a courtesy knock, Pyrrha following behind with a fond eye roll. Ren and Jaune pop in right after, laden with booze and what looks like a pan of brownies from the cut off glance Yang manages before Nora all but tackles her in a waddling hug and shrill call of her name.

“Yang! The place looks great!”

Yang’s scoffing snort dies in her throat as Nora shoots off to squeeze Ruby, and Pyrrha levels with her, a small smile on her lips.

“Hey, love. Good to see you.” Pyrrha’s hug is far less abrasive, smooth and that much harder to not fall completely apart in. Pieces of feeling put together that have only just settled back in threaten to trip over this soft embrace.

“Hey, Pyrr. Sorry I missed last week.” Her voice is rougher than it should be had she not been teetering and the skimming look Pyrrha passes over her as she draws back leaves Yang sure it didn’t go unnoticed. Thankfully she leaves it without comment, simply squeezes Yang’s hand as her palm slides from a grip on Yang’s shoulder to tug along her wrist.

“No worries. Life sneaks up on all of us.” Pyrrha’s look lingers an extra beat than necessary but draws away without much more, always all too capable of reading a situation. Rushing gratitude surges like waves and Yang lets them carry her away, lets rivulets of tension run off of her back into the water that drowned her.

Ren wastes no time at all in the kitchen retrieving enough drinking glasses for everyone bar Ruby, pouring a healthy serving of Nora’s signature Death Juice in each glass from the plastic jug with sharpied skull and crossbones drawn on each side. 

“Weiss coming tonight?” Jaune pipes up, pulling a chair out at the table and plopping into it like he’s been here a hundred times. He sets the brownies down and immediately starts prying a corner piece free from the side speckled with walnuts. Pyrrha hands him a napkin for it even as Nora slaps his hand. It does little to deter him.

“She said she was. Should be here soon,” Yang says with a shrug, grabbing the stack of board games from the recently erected living room bookshelf. Spreading them on the table to be chosen from, she draws a chair out for herself, sits opposite Jaune.

“Hey, what about your new roommate?” Nora asks, ducking her head sideways to peer down the hallway like Blake might be silently lurking at the end of it.

“At work. She said she’ll join us if she feels up to it when she gets home.”

“How’s that been going?” Pyrrha asks as Ren sets a freshly poured glass in front of Yang. She can smell it from here.

“Yeah, how ready is she to kill you for all this construction?” Jaune teases, words muffled through a mouthful of brownie.

It’s a little too close to earlier triggers for comfort, sweeps up a dusting of discomfort she fights tooth and nail to soothe done. She calls it a victory when her breathing stays level. Under the table her knee jogs, hands shake without witness. 

“It’s been good so far. Blake’s actually really great about the work; she’s been a big help with tearing down the kitchen walls and painting the living room. It’s also been kinda nice to have the company around. Honestly, I think she got the shorter end of the stick with this deal,” Yang laughs, easy grin stretches, practice thinning out of all lines of insecurity from her tone. She might just imagine Ruby’s quick glance her way it’s so fast.

“Oh please, with your cooking _ I _ would’ve moved in if I had known you were looking for a roommate,” Jaune laughs, taking a glass from Ren and a following slap to the back of his head from Ren’s emptied palm.

“Thanks for the compliment,” Ren says dryly.

Jaune has the decency to blush. “Not that your cooking isn’t awesome. And your baking. These brownies look amazing.” His smile is more sheepish than insincere.

Ren’s eye roll is as fond as Pyrrha’s had been following Nora on the way in.

“Yeah, thanks for bringing sweets, Ren!” Ruby chirps as she drags the pan across the table and starts prying out the next square beside the corner piece Jaune claimed.

“He wanted to put weed in them but Pyrrha told him no,” Nora stage whispers across the table.

“I didn’t _ tell him _ no, I just suggested brownies everyone could enjoy might be a better idea.”

Nora mouths “suggested” toward Yang with a conspiratorial roll of her eyes. Pyrrha beans her in the side of the head with a well-aimed walnut leftover on Jaune’s napkin.

Bee’s ears perk up under Yang’s palm absently petting her. It’s all the warning given before Weiss cracks open the door.

“Weiss!” Ruby’s brownie is left behind as she shoots out of her seat to catch Weiss up in a tight hug. The receiving, soft “oof” is barely audible but not lost (on Yang), ties Yang’s lips into a smart smile from across the room as Weiss gently pats Ruby’s back with her free hand. The other sports a bottle of wine. Bee prances at their feet almost more excited to see Weiss than Ruby is. 

“Hello, Ruby,” she murmurs, squeezes once before Ruby releases. Her free hand falls to pat Bee stiffly on the head. Why that dogs loves her might always be a mystery to Yang. “I brought something more civilized to drink for anyone who wants a fighting chance of waking up tomorrow without a hangover.” She lofts the bottle of wine toward the rest of the group. 

The disdain on her face as she eyes the bright red drinks on the table says everything impolite her words skip around. She should know better than that by now, game night isn’t complete without a batch of Death Juice.

“I’ll take you up on that,” Pyrrha says, a coyly indulgent smile passing across her lips in a way the makes Yang do a double take. Her eyes zip back to see a ghost of a blush feathered over Weiss’ cheeks. 

Ew. Weird.

“Ugh, you’re so prim. Why can’t you just drink Nora’s poison in solidarity like the rest of us?” Yang groans, offense exaggerated and belligerent even as she goes to grab wine glasses for the two of them.

“Yang, just because you don’t have any respect for your liver doesn’t mean that all of us should do the same,” Weiss huffs as she pulls up a chair beside Pyrrha.

“Yeah well, you only get one body. I’m doing my duty to use mine up thoroughly.” Metal against glass clinks as she drums her prosthetic fingers along the curved wine glass in her palm.

Weiss only rolls her eyes, takes one of the glasses Yang offers her. “Is it a wasted wish to hope that arm came with a corkscrew?”

Yang’s laugh has company, snorts and giggles around the table swirling. “It’s an arm, asshole, not a Swiss Army knife,” she laughs as she turns to fish a bottle opener out of the drawer. “But that would be kind of cool if it did.”

Weiss drops the name and brand of the wine - Yang promptly forgets them both - as she pours Pyrrha a glass. She tries to also forget the weird tension she spots sitting between the narrow distance of their side-by-side chairs.

They settle on playing Cards Against Humanity. Weiss’ embarrassment over having to read off people’s absurd and dirty cards almost makes it worth having to hear Ruby read them off when it’s her turn, though thankfully there seems to be a consensus of discomfort since people’s responses on Ruby’s turn are mysteriously far more tame than on anyone else’s. 

Yang makes it a point to throw her most vulgar cards on Weiss’ turn, regardless of how well the response makes sense with the black card, just to see the blush that always pops up and her voice turn cool and tight around the words. It’s a simple, childish pleasure, one of the only things she’s found to cut through her vicious competitive streak.

\----

By the time Blake gets home, they’re many rounds into their game and most on their second glass of drinks — except Pyrrha who’s driving and tapped out after her first, and Nora who’s already moved on to her third. Ruby’s second Sprite sits far too close to the edge of the table for her having knocked her first one over and the pan of brownies has dwindled far more than any of them feel comfortable admitting their help in. Everyone’s logic for choosing white cards has progressively deteriorated as the night’s stretched on and sobrieties have begun slipping but Yang and Nora both sit tied for black cards, surprising no one.

Blake looks utterly exhausted coming in the door and more than a little wary facing a room full of strangers. Yang shouts enthusiastically at her arrival, possibly more tipsy than she meant to be by this point, and hops up to greet her anyway, steady enough on her feet to grab the last empty chair from the end of the table and drag it to sit beside Yang’s.

“Blake! Come sit. Take a load off and watch me destroy Nora in this next round.”

Nora scoffs and Yang stops herself too late to keep from sticking her tongue out at her.

Blake’s tired expression doesn’t change as says she’ll be back in a moment after she changes and Yang watches her go down the hall, chews her lip a moment before catching Weiss watching her curiously, head tilted and one eyebrow piqued. Her look slips off Yang to glance toward the hall where Blake disappeared to, her vague curiosity dripping off. Concern takes its place, a single crease between her eyebrows speaking volumes for Weiss. It shakes out the fluid swirl of ease alcohol’s layered over Yang’s usual attention to detail and chokes back up her earlier worry about Blake’s own anxiety around tonight.

“I’ll be right back.” Without looking Yang tosses down a random white card from her hand to go in the next round with whatever black card will be drawn before scooting her chair back and trailing down the hallway to check in with Blake, double check that she isn’t feeling overwhelmed or unwelcome in her own space.

Her knock on Blake’s door is gentle, afraid to wake ghosts, and Yang calls her name quietly as backup. When Blake tells her to come in, Yang barrels through her reservations and the doorway just as Blake pulls on a new shirt, back turned toward the door.

Yang’s throat goes a little dry at the canvas of skin she watches disappear before she can clear her throat and head and remember why she came in here in the first place. Blake turns around before her blush has burned off.

Her crawling smirk is sharp enough to cut. “See something you like?” she asks, teasing and light, payback for Yang giving her a hard time for the same thing the other day.

Yang swallows, shakes her head, slides on her cocky persona with practiced ease. Arms herself with a signature overconfidence that comes naturally by now, muscle memory, her first line of defense. Her grin fits on as loose as her laugh does. “Well like I said, art is supposed to be looked at.”

Blake’s lips quip up, a faint blush surfacing in her own cheeks as she rolls her eyes fondly. Yang drinks it in greedily, far too pleased that Blake lets her have this one. “Did you need something, Yang? Or did you just come in to stare then?”

She shakes herself, regroups. Backtracks to recall why she wandered in here in the first place. “Right. So I know that I mentioned before that they’d all be here tonight, and that you said that’s fine, but I wanted to double check that it’s still okay. You don’t have to come hang out if you’re not feeling up to it — though we’d all totally love for you to join if you want to.”

Blake just looks at her for a few long beats, one of those tiny, soft smiles of hers perched on her lips, a corner of her mouth barely curled, and Yang’s just tipsy enough, just high enough on this infectious pulsing moment, to drift a little closer. Blake’s stare feels like a force of gravity all her own. She wonders if anyone else ever notices, ever feels the same tugging lure all around Blake.

“I’m fine, Yang, though I appreciate you checking in. I’m pretty tired so I probably won’t sit for long. But I want to meet your friends, and get to know your sister a little better. Besides, I think I saw some punch out there and I could totally use a drink right now.”

Yang grimaces with a laugh. “Nora’s drinks will definitely take an edge off. Sand you right down to a quick death and bad decisions if you’re not careful.”

Blake’s laugh is soft, smooth enough to wrap Yang up, heavy enough to leave her a little dizzy on her feet, especially when Blake takes another step closer, closing the already narrow distance between them, whittling it down to measures of personal space. “Sounds pretty good to me right now.”

Yang knows Blake’s voice is just low and gravely like that because she’s tired, that her voice always drops the later into the evening it gets, but even with those excuses the tone wrapped around those words still does something to Yang. Good somethings. Bad somethings. Reckless, reckless somethings.

“Yeah?” Yang asks a little breathlessly, tries to regain mental footing she’s been slipping on since she walked into this room.

“Yeah,” Blake shrugs back, the small smile curling tighter on her lips, crooked and confident.

“Let’s get you a drink then.” Yang clears her throat. “Do you smoke? I think Ren was about to pack a bowl for anyone who wanted in.”

There’s a flash of something that slips over Blake’s face too quick for Yang’s mind to intercept. “I haven’t smoked in a while. I’ll probably pass on that one.”

“Fair enough. Also — fair warning,” Yang says, hovering by the door as they move to tread back out down the hall, “Nora’s a little drunk and always more than a little loud.” Yang’s one to talk, the way she’s feeling right now. “She can be a lot to handle when she’s sober but she’s friendly, so don’t worry. Just, be aware she’ll pretty much be screaming every time she talks.”

Blake laughs and reaches past Yang to twist the doorknob. “I’m a big girl, Yang. I can handle meeting a group of new people.” She’s close enough her breath tickles, stirs a lock of Yang’s hair by her cheek. When her hand slips off the doorknob it trails against the back of Yang’s knuckles, gently squeezes her palm. Yang’s heart rackets in her chest haphazardly, trying to keep pace with her slippery thoughts. It’s one of the few times Blake’s reached out to Yang first, another tally for their closing distance. “Thanks for the heads up though.”

Unspoken, it’s obvious to Yang her thanks is for more than just the heads up about Nora or the Death Juice. For more reasons than she could’ve expected, she’s thankful she came to check in on Blake.

“Of course.”

Weiss’ sharp eyes pin her when they wander back in but Nora’s screeching “You!” and pointed finger rips Yang’s attention away. She expects Nora’s attention to be on Blake, though she’s not sure why she’d be screaming at her already, but instead her fiery, offended glare is fixed on Yang.

“How the fuck do you manage to win when you aren’t even in the room?” Her voice is shrill and affronted and it takes Pyrrha piping up for Yang realize what she’s on about.

“You won the black card while you were gone. And Nora tried to make Ren choose another winner before you came back.”

“Cheater,” Yang laughs as she grabs a clean glass for Blake.

Blake takes the seat Yang pulled up next to hers. She tries not to wear her happiness too openly when Blake draws a hand of cards to join them.

Yang rattles off introduction around the table before they start the next round and tries to hide a grin when she spies a glass of Nora’s juice in front of Weiss.

“Staying the night then, Weiss?” Smarmy glee is bare in her voice.

“Oh, shut up.”

“Glad my liver will have some extra company,” Yang gloats.

“Speaking of-” Nora pipes, jumping up from her seat to zoom into the kitchen, stumbling slightly on the uneven floor. Yang buries a wince, fights frustration. It’s left behind quickly though when Nora returns with her juice to pour a full, sloshing glass for Blake, adding a shrill, “Welcome to the table, you’ve got some catching up to do,” before swinging the gallon jug threateningly toward Yang’s glass, refilling it without waiting for a reply.

When Blake glances her way with an amused smile and raised eyebrow, Yang shakes her head and mouths “drink half,” in warning, mimes with her thumb and finger to size it up. It takes that moment for Yang to realize they’ve never drunk together before, Yang’s frequent drinking days retired alongside college partying.

Blake’s eyes go a little round when she takes a whiff of the cup. Yang just laughs and shrugs, clinks her glass against Blake’s and says, “You heard the woman. Drink up, Belladonna.”

Blake’s golden eyes take on a dangerous glint, smile sharp again as it’s fixed on Yang taking a modest sip from her cup before Blake tips back a few long gulps. Nora whoops and Yang tries to find her footing. It’s difficult not to choke on her own drink.

Jaune starts the next round, draws a black card and reads, “What ended my last relationship?”

A long pause slides around the table, sprinkled with snickers and snorts as people sift through their cards. 

Ren picks out his white card to put down, draws a replacement and turns his eyes to Yang. “So Yang, what name did you choose for this place?”

“Name?” Blake tilts her head toward Yang as she lays her own white card and draws.

“Yang always insists on naming places and things. She’s come up with names for all our houses and apartments. It’s pretty much tradition at this point,” Jaune explains, drags the stack of white cards over to read off once everyone’s thrown one down.

“It started with my dad when we had multiple houses we were working on at once. Naming them helped keep things straight when we’d talk shop,” Yang elaborates, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious, defensive of the habit.

Jaune rattles off the white cards to a round of laughs and oohs as everyone seems to have taken the chance to bust Jaune’s balls. When he laughs, shaking his head, and chooses Blake’s card — “half-assed foreplay” — Yang can’t help the excited bite of competition from leaping in her throat.

“What’s your place named?” Blake asks Jaune, grin still bare as he forks over the black card she won.

“Our place is Head Quarters or HQ since that’s usually where we all end up for big events,” Nora grumbles, narrowed eyes zipping between Blake and Yang as if there’s some cheating conspiracy afoot that’s going to cost her the game.

The conversation surfs between the motions of the game playing out, black cards read, white cards laid in response and read off, a winner chosen. Rinse and repeat.

“Does Weiss’ apartment have a name?”

“Of course. Hers is The Estate, so she can feel bougie and better than the rest of us,” Yang says with a wink at Weiss.

Weiss doesn’t justify the comment with a reply, simply raises the middle finger of the hand holding her cards and sips from her glass. 

Yang snorts. “No, Weiss, sticking your pinky finger up means you’re fancy, not your middle one.”

Without a word Weiss adds her pinky finger to her raised middle one, pulls a cackle from Yang and a giggle from Ruby. Blake’s following laugh laps at Yang’s urge to draw more from her, an unending cycle that doubles back on itself as soon as it spools out.

“Ruby’s apartment by campus is the Workshop since she and Penny are always working on ridiculous contraptions,” Yang continues. 

Blake props her feet up in Yang lap after laying down her next white card and leaning back into her seat. One of Yang’s hands falls naturally to rest of her shins, leans into the ease of touch they’ve cultivated with each other.

Ruby nods, throwing in her own addition, “And dad’s place is Home Base, for obvious reasons.”

“So? What’s this one, Yang?” Nora urges, impatience obvious, thinning the more inebriated she becomes.

“How about the Cube?” Jaune suggests suddenly, touches his fingers together to make a square. “You know, ‘cause the outside of the house is square?”

Pyrrha touches Jaune’s arm and gently shakes her head. He deflates a little and puts his hands down.

“Thanks, Jaune, but I’ve got this one covered,” Yang says, tries to bury a laugh. “Maybe next time.”

“Okay, so then what is it?” Weiss prompts, more exasperated than the short buildup warrants.

“Yeah, what’s this one gonna be, Yang?” Blake asks, egging her on with a curled smile, curiosity apparently piqued.

Yang coughs and rolls a shoulder, hesitates for the first time in this conversation, more self-conscious about her choice than she realized she would be. “Well, I know it’s a little cheesy but I was kind of thinking I’d just call it the Haven.”

“Oh, I get it. Because of the street!” Nora says, jabbing a thumb over she shoulder toward the door.

Yang clears her throat again and stares at her cards to keep from looking at Blake or Weiss, busies herself needlessly rearranging her hand. “That, and because it’s kind of been gods send. I needed a project and it’s a great space, the first place I can really call _ mine _, ya know? I hate that Raven played any part in making that possible but knowing she’d hate that this is what I’m doing with the money makes it all that much sweeter, really.”

“Raven?” Blake asks, head cocked, cradling her glass in the hand not holding her cards.

“The egg donor,” Nora says, faking a noise of throwing up that Yang desperately hopes doesn’t lead to the real thing.

Yang rolls her eyes — at Nora’s statement, the sound, and the thought of Raven. “She’s my bio mom. Left before I could even remember her and not worth mentioning unless you toss in a curse to go alongside it. She’s kinda the worst.” 

It’s the simplest explanation of Raven Yang’s ever given anyone, smoothest and easiest and it doesn’t even sting as she spills it. She’s not sure what to thank for that — the Death Juice in her hand and head, the company of friends who already know the story, or Blake, who always seems to make tough things easier.

Thankfully Blake doesn’t ask questions and no one else adds further response. It’s not until Blake traces a featherlight thumb across Yang’s knuckles that she realizes her hand on Blake’s knee had curled into a fist. 

The action is tender enough to catch fire in her skin, this minuscule display of silent recognition Blake offers up like it isn’t the greatest kindness she could show Yang at the moment. Blake doesn’t say anything about it, doesn’t even look Yang’s way, but the gesture leaves a lump in Yang’s throat to swallow past. She squeezes Blake’s knee in silent thanks, hopes the message gets across without words.

\----

To both Yang’s and Nora’s affront, Blake’s choice of white cards armed with her humor rounds up the approval of everyone at the table, taking no time at all for her to catch up with Yang and Nora for most black cards. 

Yang’s hand tightens on Blake’s calf, groaning in frustration when Blake wins the round that ties the three of them, and Nora’s screeching “No!” leaves Ruby cackling behind her hand. Weiss’ glass hides her own smile as she takes a sip, cheeks rosy from the buzz she’s obviously feeling if the way her fingers fumble to pick her cards off the table is anything to go off of.

The background music playing on Yang’s phone falls off as the battery runs dry and Ren covers his glass when Nora grabs the almost empty jug to start refilling cups once again. Yang’s fingers fiddle thoughtlessly with the seam on the leg of Blake’s jeans when they aren’t otherwise occupied sorting through her hand of cards, arranging them strategically from least to most dirty. The feeling of Blake’s leg muscles contracting when she sits up to lay a card down or draw another is almost as distracting as the chance Yang might lose the game.

When Ren finally packs the bowl of his hand pipe and starts passing it around the table, Yang knows better than to think she’ll be coherent enough to win if she takes a hit. That doesn’t stop her though, mentally throwing in the towel to Blake as she takes the lighter and little bowl after Ruby. She’s silently glad that Nora passes on smoking tonight, not eager for the idea of having to mop up puke when she would have inevitably gotten the spins after having drunk so much already.

Not long after the pipe’s second pass around the table Ruby’s eyes start to droop and shoulders sag with sleep. It’s no surprise when she stacks her hand into the discard pile and retreats to the couch to curl up with Bumblebee who’s all too eager to cuddle up on the cushions as Ruby’s little spoon. It takes no time at all for her to be fast asleep, soft snores audible now that the music has fizzled out.

“Ruby’s got the right idea. I think I need to go to bed too,” Blake says around a yawn.

“I’m surprised you lasted this long, early bird.” Yang pokes her in the side, aiming to tickle, gets a flat death glare back.

“If you go now you forfeit!” Nora shouts, volume control long gone with her sobriety.

Blake’s laugh gets swallowed by another yawn. “That’s fine. I’ll beat you next time.”

Next time. The words swirl and swell, fill in against cracks of worry and doubt that Blake’s just been playing polite joining in the game tonight.

“Sleep tight,” Yang tells her as Blake drags her legs free from Yang’s lap, earning a light squeeze of Yang’s palm all the way down from knee to toe as she goes.

Blake’s smile is soft as she stretches, arms high over her head. She looks down at Yang as mumbles a heavy, “Night, Yang. Try not to let Nora win.” The wink that follows glues Yang tongue to the roof of her mouth. 

And then the moment is over, Blake’s eyes turning away to run around the other people at the table, exhaustion-thick voice murmuring a soft, “It was nice to meet you guys. Thanks for the game and drinks. Try not to fall out of your chair there, Weiss,” she adds, a smile twisting on her lips. 

Weiss blinks back dozing eyelids and gives herself a little shake. “I’m perfectly fine,” she huffs, sounding nothing of the sort. 

“Right.” Blake’s smile twitches but she lets it go. Her eyes skim over Yang a last time as she pulls herself away. 

Yang watches Blake’s trek to the hall. When she turns back around, Yang can’t miss the sharp stare Weiss has leveled on her, foggy traces of sleep all but dissipated from her expression.

Before she can ask what’s up, Weiss turns to look back to the rest of the table. “Another round?” she prompts, like she hasn’t been griping all night about how vulgar this game is.

\----

A particularly loud snore from Ruby startles Bee enough to shift, turning around to tuck her head over Ruby’s shoulder. Yang finds herself grinning before she knows it, reaching for her phone to take a picture before realizing - with it in her hand but not turning on - that the battery’s still dead. About to ask to borrow Pyrrha’s phone, instead she spies something way better: Blake’s phone left behind for the taking. A wicked grin races across her lips at the thought of Blake finding a long string of ridiculous photos on her phone later. 

She swipes it to its camera and snaps a picture of Ruby and Bee from her vantage point at the table in case getting up startles either to move. Then, slowly, she creeps into the living room to grab a closer up snapshot.

It’s fucking adorable to see them tucked together like this. Yang’s heart thrums a few hard beats taking in these shining pieces of her world so at peace fitted together. 

By the time she gets back to the table, Weiss’ head is already bobbing to stay awake, doing a poor job of it really with the way it sags lower and longer each time between jerking up. When she drops again, Yang snags a picture and stifles a laugh when Pyrrha leans in to pose beside her.

Turning the camera to front facing, Yang throws her arm out high and aims to capture them all in a shot, snapping an exorbitant number for good measure, the last two featuring Weiss once again trying to shake herself awake. 

With the night winding down, she pockets both her phone and Blake’s before heading over to retrieve Ruby from the couch. She ushers Bee down and scoops Ruby into a bridal carry, shaking her head as Ruby wiggles around sleepily and wraps her arms around Yang’s shoulders, buries her face in the crook of her neck to hide from the kitchen light.

“Say goodnight, Ruby,” Yang sing-songs, shrugs Ruby a little in her arms to rouse her.

“Goodnight, Ruby,” Ruby mumbles, earns Yang’s laugh.

Their friends around the table bid Ruby their own goodnights and Yang tells them she’ll be right back, carries Ruby down the hall to her room to tuck into bed. Yang plugs her phone in to revive it and leaves it on her nightstand, pets Bee’s head on the way out as she hops up to take her designated spot at the bottom of Yang’s bed.

“Alright, princess, your turn.” Yang scrapes Weiss’ chair back from the table and before she can protest, too sleepy to put together just what Yang means, Yang grabs her wrist and heaves Weiss over her shoulders into a fireman carry, praying silently Weiss won’t throw up all over her. Weiss squawks as she’s yanked up, tries to jerk away before clutching tighter to Yang when she feels like she’s falling. 

“Put me down! I can walk!” 

“That’s what all drunk people think, Weiss. This is much safer.” 

Yang can’t help but pull out Blake’s phone again, snap a few pictures of her beaming at the camera opposite Weiss’ indignant glaring as Yang carries her the short trip into the guest room. The tools have been safely quarantined into one corner and a guest bed is set up against the far wall for exactly this situation. 

Weiss glowers as Yang dumps her into the bed, shoving her away with a cold, “Bitch.” 

“Love you too. Gimme a second to see the others out and I’ll bring you a change of clothes.” 

Nora’s slumped sleepily against Ren’s shoulder when Yang comes back out and Pyrrha’s gathered up the emptied Death Juice jug and what’s left of the brownies. Jaune’s almost finished sorting through the cards, stacking them tidily back into the box for Yang. 

It takes some effort to coax Nora into stumbling to the car but between Ren and Jaune supporting either arm and pouring her into the back seat, she makes it out okay. Pyrrha lingers back a little, keeping Yang company the side door steps, letting the rest of her group get loaded into the car before turning gentle eyes on Yang. 

“Thanks for hosting tonight.”

“Of course. It was a blast as usual,” Yang shrugs off, draws her into a hug Pyrrha holds her in a little too tightly. 

“Call me if you need anything, okay? I mean it.” 

Yang’s throat closes up around any possible reply she could give back so instead she just nods tightly as she pulls away, brushes a kiss against Pyrrha’s cheek in thanks. Clearing her throat is a bit like swallowing sandpaper. “Text me when you get home safely.”

“Will do. Sleep tight.”

She stands on the steps to watch them pull away before heading inside to tidy up, scooping glasses into the sink and putting the games back onto the living room shelf. She’s proud that she remembers to grab loose sleep clothes for Weiss, a t-shirt that will dwarf her and a pair of boxers with snowflakes on them that she’ll likely grumble about even as she plans to steal them. 

She already well asleep by the time Yang cracks the guest room door open and sets them on the bedside table. As an afterthought, she comes back a moment later to leave a tall glass of water and some aspirin for her hangover, shaking her gently awake long enough to encourage her to change and drink up. 

The fact that Weiss breathes out a very tired but genuine “thanks” is proof enough to Yang that she’ll definitely need the aspirin come morning. 

“Sure thing, hon.” Yang presses a quick kiss to her forehead and pulls the door shut on her way out. 

She leaves Blake’s phone on the table where she found it, hoping she won’t need the alarm on it to wake up in the morning. She’s pretty sure Blake has the next day off so Yang’s reasonably sure it’ll be okay. 

Following her own advice for Weiss, Yang chugs an entire glass of water before pouring a second one to set beside her own pair of pills on her nightstand. Behind the glass her phone lights up with a text from Pyrrha that they’ve made it home and that Nora ranted and raved about Blake the entire ride home. 

She shoots back a laughing face and heart emoji before climbing into bed beside Ruby, pushing her sister off to one side rather than square in the middle of the mattress. Not that that’ll deter her for long. 

Her bed is inviting as she settles into it, heart full and head swirling with warm affection for all the wonderful people she has in her life, new and old ones alike. She doesn’t feel worthy of them but after a night like tonight, they manage to make her feel like less like that matters so much.

Her eyes track along the door across the hall from her left-open one and she falls asleep with a smile on her lips. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't say I'm entirely thrilled with how this chapter turned out but that's just how it goes sometimes. I'm gonna do another read through of it tomorrow to catch any mistakes that slipped through so if you see any feel free to point them out in the comments.  
As always thanks for reading <3
> 
>   
Comments? Questions? Rude remarks? Drop me a line below to share your thoughts.


	5. best intentions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always thank you all for your patience. This story is much slower going than I ever imagined it’d be considering I’ve had the whole thing mapped out from the start but I do my best to take my time with every chapter, and even though I beat myself up sometimes about how long I take to update, I can’t say I ever regret spending the time I need to write this right. 
> 
> Thank you so much to anyone who’s commented, left a kudos, or bookmarked this fic. I can’t tell you how encouraging it is to me to get your feedback and to know that this story means something to so many people.
> 
> Lastly, if anyone cares, the start of this chapter was heavily inspired by the Jasmine Thompson cover of You Are My Sunshine and the very end was written to Billie Eilish's come out and play.

Between stretched out threads of consciousness, Blake grasps that she’s dreaming. It’s a certainty that comes flitting back and forth, slips away as easily as it sticks, lingers between heartbeats and slow blinks.

In the moment, this realization doesn’t make spooled out circumstance any less transfixing – with Yang cradled hazily in her arms and an eclipsing warmth creeping in around their edges, a peace of normalcy to this moment spread over them like a blanket. Blake hugs it as it hugs her.

In the slippery glimpses of lucidity, she’s vaguely sure this isn’t quite right, a reality slightly off kilter and out of place for them, a closeness they haven’t truly covered yet. But even the idea of “yet” drifts wrongly across blurry confusion, sinks beyond remark or pause as sleep overwhelms and claims all of Blake’s rational reasoning again.

She shrugs deeper into the heat Yang radiates, holds this sunburst in her arms like she’s rightfully the unending darkness of space this little star has chosen to burn out in. She ghosts an absent skim of her lips against Yang’s forehead, feels Yang nuzzle against her neck in response as they drift farther off in this swallowing dreamscape.

When waking tugs, the dream dissolves fleetingly around Blake, a dragging thread unraveling the full picture. Tiny pieces that don’t quite add up fizzle out like drifting dust motes. The only bits she manages to catch between her fingers, fog in her palms, escape even as she scrambles to catch on. It leaves a wistful hanging in her chest, a sense of echoing loss she can’t place a name to, a longing in her bones that twinges like forgiveness and finding.

An odd fractal of Yang, distorted and vaguely misfit, is all that she manages to scrounge up, all that tickles at her memory. It’s not enough, tugs on other strings she can’t quite sew together into a full picture, but squeezes onto like a slipping lifeline, a soft place to land despite all the missing pieces that scatter on waking.

It’s not that surprising she can’t hold onto them; her head feels so foggy she’s not sure she could remember her own middle name right now. It was stupid to have drunk on an empty stomach, to have gone to bed so late without eating anything after work. The headache nestled neatly at the base of her skull is primed to serve as ample reminder of that for the rest of the day.

She takes her time wiggling out from under the covers, stretching and twisting this way and that before she finally tosses them off herself and sleepily sets about finding a fresh shirt to drag on, an easy task made much harder by the way the light hurts every time she opens her eyes even a smidge. A yawn cracks her jaw. Pulling on fuzzy lounge pants that were draped over her desk chair offers a little piece of comfort to carry her from her room into the real world. Or at least into the kitchen to make tea.

It’s so peaceful and quiet in the house with no one else awake just yet, and Blake so halfheartedly conscious she barely counts herself as awake. Not even Bumblebee trots out to meet her, sleeping in for once with the rest of the house despite hers and Blake’s established morning routine.

Navigating with barely opened eyes, making tea takes about all the energy Blake can summon up before collapsing into the chair she sat in last night, hands wrapped contentedly around her warm mug. She’s surprised to find her phone out here on the table, a hand reaching reflexively to her empty pocket where she assumed she’d tucked it already, on autopilot in her sleepy haze.

Thank gods she hadn’t set an alarm for this morning. Even through closed doors it probably would’ve woken everyone, and Weiss is _ not _ a happy morning person.

It doesn’t take long for a few quiet groans of pain to trickle out from behind the closed guest room door. When Weiss peels it open Blake can’t help her quiet laugh. 

Tangled white hair circles a messy halo around Weiss’ head and the blue t-shirt she’s wearing (one of Yang’s Blake recognizes) is so big on her Blake can barely see snowflake boxers peeking out from under the hem as Weiss shuffles wordlessly down the hall to the bathroom.

It’s a relief not to hear the sound of throwing up follow behind considering the hungover state she’s obviously in.

It takes so long for Weiss to flush and wash her hands Blake starts to wonder if she’s fallen asleep on the toilet. By the way Weiss shuffles equally sleepily back down the hall when she’s done, it’s not entirely out of the question.

“You alright there, Weiss?”

She jumps so high it’s astounding Bee still doesn’t come running out at the sound of people now awake.

“Fucking hell, Blake! What is wrong with you, sneaking up on a person like that!” Weiss whisper-shrieks, hands flying indignantly to pose on her hips.

“Sneaking up?” Blake snorts dryly. “I’ve been sitting here since before you got up. It’s not my fault you’re sleepwalking around here.”

The harrumph Weiss makes is so characteristic of Morning Weiss that, for a moment, it takes Blake back to her time sleeping on Weiss’ couch not so long ago. It swirls up feelings so overpoweringly fond it takes Blake a moment to swallow down an unexpected lump she tries to clear with a long sip of tea. It gives Weiss time to regroup as well.

Blake turns in her chair to watch Weiss start making a pot of coffee, winding her way through the kitchen like she herself lives here. It’s a little surprising how easily she shuffles through the cabinets to gather what she needs - she hasn’t been over for coffee in the time Blake’s lived here, as far as she’s aware, but considering she works most mornings, it’s not entirely out of the question.

Conversation sits comfortably quiet between them as Weiss waits for her coffee to brew, sleep wound far too tightly around each of their voices right now to choke up the effort to talk. When Weiss has finished scooping a modest half-spoonful of sugar into her black coffee, she drags out the chair across from Blake and rests her head down on her folded arms while she waits for her coffee to cool.

Blake pulls up the news on her phone to skim through in the contented silence. A flicker of movement, Weiss peeking one eye open, catches her attention but doesn’t pull it away.

“Oh gods. Do me a favor and delete whatever pictures Yang took of me last night,” Weiss says, voice muffled against her arm as she leaves her head tucked down and closes both eyes again.

“What?”

“On your phone. She took like a million as she carried me to bed like some savage.”

Blake fights with every achingly exhausted bone in her body not to snort at Weiss’ wording and the mental picture it summons up of Yang dressed like some caveman with Weiss slung over her shoulder like a prize.

Curiosity eagerly getting the better of her, she flips over to her photo gallery and can’t help but gasp, assaulted by a screen full of photos she had definitely not taken. She swipes up, trying to find the beginning of them, and feels her exasperation grow as row after row of pictures zoom past, no end in sight. There has to be well over fifty of them, maybe closer to a hundred.

“That idiot,” Blake mutters under her breath. It comes out more fondly than she means for it to, more fondly than she exactly feels right now as she clicks on the first photo and starts looking through them up close. She doesn’t miss the movement of Weiss’ eyes opening again to watch her.

Most of the pictures are blurry from the unsteady hands that took them and a number of them are so streaked Blake can’t even tell what they were supposed to be of. It’s actually a little endearing to have these snapshots of moments she wasn’t privy to as they were happening but ones she’s now involved in regardless, a keeper of frozen times so obviously full of happiness and laughter, even blurry as they are now.

Many are hazy enough that trying to focus on them makes Blake’s head throb a little harder but two of them are completely clear and sharply in focus.

One of Ruby and Bee sleeping on the couch tucked neatly together. And one of Weiss hoisted over Yang’s shoulder in a position very similar to what Blake had pictured earlier, bar of course the ridiculous caveman getup her mind had put Yang in. In the photo Yang’s hair is a mess, Weiss is twisted around looking absolutely affronted, and Yang’s smile is bursting like a sun.

She deletes plenty of them (most of them) but keeps a few that are a little bit breathtaking. 

One stands out beyond the rest. A group picture with Yang in one corner, most in focus nearest to the camera as she is. The camera is tilted to capture the rest of the group at the table, hazy in the background behind her, all clearly smiling despite how very out of focus they are. Well, all smiling except Weiss, whose head is drooping sleepily just like Blake left her when she went to bed. 

It’s the only one that halts Blake in her tracks, stills her finger from swiping rapidly through the rest of the photos. Yang’s so beautiful in it it almost hurts, staring into the camera, into Blake, with alcohol-flushed cheeks and a cheeky smile, toothy and wilder than even her hair that’s messily pulled over one shoulder. It’s the kind of smile she’s only seen Yang aim at her. 

A little dizzy, Blake tries to bury the garden of flowers that’s blooming in her chest, even aware in the moment at how very pointless the effort is. By now she can tell, this isn’t a gravity she’ll easily escape. After all, flowers naturally grow toward the sun.

\----

Yang finds Blake and Weiss a little ruffled and worse for wear in the morning, each sagging in their dining room chairs over cups of tea and coffee, sleep-mussed hair and drooping eyelids leaving them looking as disheveled and out of touch with the rest of the world as Yang feels. Ruby’s piping loud “Good morning!” sings of cheer none of them feel. Yang tries to pull together some optimism, tries to appreciate the seldom chinks in armor she bears witness to around the table, tucks a smile away as she makes her own cup of coffee and pours juice for Ruby.

It takes a few deep beats of liquid quiet, of gathering resolves to face the rest of the day, before Yang gives in and suggests going out for pancakes. The rest of the destitute kitchen pitches in their agreement, quiet in two parts and loud in the other.

“Ruby,” Yang places a heavy hand on her sister’s shoulder, yanking her a little closer to truly deliver her point, “you should drive.”

“Oh gods,” Weiss groans low under her breath, but Yang doesn’t hear her volunteer herself or voice an objection beyond her groan.

It’s enough to show Yang how truly hungover she is.

Yang herself certainly isn’t going to offer to drive feeling the way she does and Ruby, of course, is all too happy to oblige.

Yang hopes Blake will forgive her. Weiss at least has enough prior experience with Ruby’s driving to consent to being a passenger but Blake hasn’t had fair warning. Yang doesn’t have it in her to tell her now.

It takes tremendous effort for each of them to change into real clothes and make it out the door.

Under mutinous layers of nausea puttering low in Yang’s belly, she feels a tiny trill of excited static, zipping but quickly buried, when Weiss takes shotgun and Yang is left slipping into the backseat beside Blake. A box of metal scraps on the far seat gives Yang the excuse to sit in the middle, pressing flush against Blake’s side with every lurching turn Ruby makes.

It’s everything she can do to keep her cool when Blake’s head lolls sleepily to rest on Yang’s shoulder, doubles down on her weakening resolve when Blake’s arms wrap around the arm she’s leaning on. She prays to whatever gods might exist that Blake can’t hear the way her heartbeat starts pounding hard enough Yang can hear it loud and clear in her own ears. It doesn’t stop her from resting her own head against the top of Blake’s, dark hair softly tickling her cheek.

Swallowing back all these feelings surging up around Blake is becoming harder and harder to do, their water level rising high enough Yang can no longer deny the way she floats in it.

Still, if she ends up dozing with her head against Blake’s, that’s nothing to look into too much.

If Blake’s fingers are a little slower than necessary releasing Yang’s shirt sleeve when Ruby’s car shudders to a sharp halt in the parking lot, it’s nothing their mutual blushes don’t burn off by the time they’ve bailed out of their seats and circled round the car.

So what if Weiss’ stare meets Yang’s, flat and unimpressed and sickenly sharp before they all meander inside, three fourths hungover zombies and one fourth human representative. 

(In her mind, Yang elects Ruby their leader. In her mind, hungover Weiss and Blake unanimously agree; there aren’t any protests voiced, at least.)

Yang’s lips quirk up in a tightly clamped down smile when Blake slides into the booth seat next to her.

She ignores Weiss’ looks throughout breakfast. It’s easier than it should be with Blake there to distract her.

\----

“Yang, would you walk me out to my car?” Weiss asks later when they’ve gotten back to the Haven, full of pancakes, syrup, and feeling slightly less hungover.

She snorts before she realizes Weiss is serious. “Uh. Sure. I guess.” A cloudy dread steeps down her spine at the request, at the hurricane of looks she’s been trying to ignore since last night.

She makes a face at Blake and Ruby before ducking out the door behind Weiss, aiming for humor to steady herself. The short walk out to Weiss’ car parked on the road is silent and still. The hairs on Yang’s arms try to rise, sensing the storm brewing in Weiss’ silence.

Weiss casts a quick glance over the car toward the house, eyes skimming the windows like she expects to catch Ruby and Blake watching. Which, to be fair, is probably smart.

No curtains shift, no eyes pull away from peeking out. It’s enough to sate Weiss, prompt her to turn on Yang with a severe enough expression Yang has to work to keep from taking a step back, from squirming as she tucks her hands in her pockets, aims for casualty.

“Yang, I love you, but what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Weiss hedges, one hand posed on a cocked hip.

“Uh… walking you to your car?”

The glare she gets back for her hilarity leaves Yang swallowing nervously despite her best efforts to appear unaffected.

“Look, I get it, Blake is gorgeous and you’re both single and in close proximity so of course it’s going to cross your mind.”

Ah fuck. Here it comes.

“But seriously, don’t be a dumbass. She’s not just some girl for you to hook up with. She’s your _ roommate _and my friend. Don’t fuck around with her. You both deserve better than that.”

“Wow, thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt, Weiss. Really feeling the love here.” Yang leans against the car for support.

“I’m being serious. You like her. I know you well enough to tell when you have your eye on someone. Find a different passing fling to fill your time.”

“Okay, and so what if I do? Blake’s a great person and I like being around her. Sorry if I’m excited to meet someone I clicked with right away.” Yang shrugs a little, crosses her arms to shield herself. “And who says it’d be just some passing fling, anyway?”

Weiss’ eyeroll is so loud Blake and Ruby inside could probably hear it. “Gods, look, I love you but we both know you don’t _ do _ relationships. Not serious ones at least. I mean, I get it, crushes happen and it’s fun to flirt, but for gods’ sakes, don’t fucking act on it. I really don’t want her stuck back on my couch trying to find yet another place to live after you two fuck and things get weird so she has to leave.”

Leave?

It’s a word that pulls Yang up short, stalls her rising anger, snuffs out this burning under her tongue before she lashes back with the words that were jumping up a moment before. She opens her mouth to argue but nothing comes out.

“Consequences, Yang. Just for a moment I’m asking you to think about the consequences of your actions. Please don’t make things any more difficult for her than they already are.”

“Where is all of this coming from, anyway? You’ve barely spent a day around us.”

“You’re kidding, right? I think anyone who spends more than 10 minutes with you could pick up on this _ whatever _ that’s going on between you two.”

“What ‘_ whatever’? _” Yang asks a little too quickly. She can’t ignore the way her heartbeat speeds up at the implication that it’s clear to someone else that this thing is a two way street between them, perking up like a fucking puppy at the sheer idea. She tries to curse it back down into calm, hopes it hasn’t shown all over her face.

The flat deadpan Weiss gives her, the same one she’s been aiming at Yang all day, makes it clear she’s not fooling anyone. 

“‘What whatever?’” Weiss scoffs, runs a hand through her hair as if to shake off the question. “The _ whatever _ that’s all this annoying, constant touching and staring at each other thing you two keep doing. I’ve known Blake a long time and she’s hardly the most affection kind of person. It’s just weird to see. And then you’re over here barely able to keep from staring at her every two seconds. It’s sickening, really.”

Sickening isn’t the word Yang would use. In fact it’s kind of difficult to keep a gleeful smile from creeping up on her lips.

“Please, just, leave this thing between you two alone. I really don’t want to see either of you get hurt by this.”

“I don’t get it, why exactly do you think this is such a disastrous thing?” Yang huffs.

“Because I think Blake has plenty stuff to work through already and you don’t have the best track record with girls.” Weiss holds up a hand to stall Yang’s angry rebuttal as words spring to the roof of her opening mouth. “And if anyone gets that, it’s me. We both tend to push people away before they get the chance to do it back to us, so don’t even try to tell me I’m wrong about that. I’m really trying not to bring out receipts for all this but I will if you want me to.”

No, she really doesn’t need that right now. Still, anger brittle under her tongue, Yang spits out, “Is that what happened with you and Ilia then?” before she thinks better of it. She wants the words back as soon as they’re out. Weiss’ cheeks flood red, whether from anger or upset, it’s unclear.

She sniffs as she adjusts her shirt, breaks their heated glaring match and clears her throat. “I wasn’t talking about Ilia.”

“No surprise there…” Yang breathes under her breath, patience worn too thin by now to keep sharp remarks to herself.

“What happened with Ilia is none of your business. Now stop deflecting and please just tell me you aren’t going to make a move on Blake. She could use stability a lot more right now than a fuckbuddy. She needs people she can count on, Yang, and you’re someone I think could be that for her.”

It’s such a clear turn from the way the conversation has been going it pulls Yang up short. “So now you’re saying you think I _ am _ good for her?”

Weiss’ laugh is jarring. “Of course I do. I wouldn’t have sent her your way if I didn’t and it seems like you two are getting along even better than I thought you would. I think a friend like you is exactly what she needs right now.”

Head spinning a little from conversational whiplash, Yang pushes off from Weiss’ car, scrubs a hand through her hair. Heaving a breath, and cursing loudly in her head, she sighs. “Yeah, okay, I promise I’ll behave.”

It’s palpable the way those words drain tension from Weiss’ entire body, leaves Yang actually feeling a little bad, a little taken aback, at how much this must have been weighing on Weiss all night.

“Thank you.” Weiss clears her throat, stands there a little awkwardly clutching her purse for a moment before Yang rolls her eyes and drags her in for a tight hug, smacks a loud kiss on her cheek.

“Sure thing, mom,” she says sarcastically to cut the lingering tension. “Now go before I get mad when it hits me how poorly you think of me.” She says it in jest but it’s hard to swallow casually around the lump this conversation’s pulled up in her throat.

She tries to shake the whole thing off as she walks inside but it hangs around her head the whole rest of the day, itching like something buried too deep to scratch.

As soon as she’s inside she mumbles an excuse about a headache and wanting a nap so she can disappear to her room to hide as her feelings crash up and under and in on her.

She pretends to be asleep when Ruby sticks her head in to tell her goodbye.

It doesn’t take long, barely an hour tossing and turning in her bed, for her to realize that pushing down her feelings for Blake is going to be more difficult than she ever imagined.

Even days later it still hangs like a haunting in her head.

Despite her defensiveness she can’t help but wonder if Weiss is right. Her trickling feelings have started pooling a little too full for comfort. Blake’s obviously got enough of her own stuff to handle without having to add worrying over Yang’s feelings for her to the mix. She herself is more than enough of a mess without taking on new, complicated feelings for someone else anyway.

It’s easier said (left unsaid) than done though.

But Weiss is right. Blake’s friendship isn’t worth risking, this precious connection they share isn’t something Yang could stand to lose. 

Even having only known her such a short time, it’s easy for Yang to concede just how much she wants to hang on to Blake, how much she wants to be a permanent part of Blake’s world, not just some passing moment in her life where Blake once paused to catch her breath before moving on. She wants to matter.

Weiss said she needs stability. Yang can do that, could be that.

It’s an uncomfortable thought to swallow when she realizes there isn’t much she wouldn’t do to keep Blake from leaving. 

\----

Loneliness creeps up in spades beneath the framework of her new norm trembling under the weight of Yang suddenly seeming to pull back, taking up house projects without Blake and cutting back on their shared times together, making long trips to the hardware store without asking Blake to tag along, retreating to her room after dinner with the clearcut change of not inviting Blake to join her as she sets up in front of her laptop.

It shouldn’t be surprising. It’s really not entirely unexpected - Yang’s a professional who actually knows what she’s doing, meanwhile Blake’s just some sucker who’s been trying to play along like she can keep up.

It still stings.

When Yang patches the kitchen ceiling gaps with fresh cut strips of drywall and Blake asks if she needs help mudding in the cracks, Yang waves her off, sheds a gentle, offhand, “I’ve got it,” without meeting her eye.

And she is. Gentle, that is. The tone she uses to turn away Blake’s offers of help is gentle enough to leave Blake feeling like she’s being pitied. It doesn’t help. 

Standing on a ladder in the kitchen, mudding pan loaded up and drywall knife ready to go, Yang pulls out a narrow, cream colored roll of papery material. From her place on the couch in the living room, Blake asks her what it is, hopes it’ll prompt Yang to rope her into helping out.

But Yang simply tells her it’s drywall tape and busies herself measuring and cutting off strips of it.

Blake’s left sitting on the living room couch with an opened book, watching Yang cleanly sandwich the tape between coats of mud across each of the seams. She can’t focus enough on reading her book to even flip a page. But she reads chapters caught between the lines of Yang’s measured movements, of a carefully focused lilac gaze, the way she stays fixedly turned away so she doesn’t have to see Blake watching her.

When Blake mentions she’s never taped drywall before - yet another feeble attempt at baiting Yang to pull her in to participate - Yang passes her off with an offhand comment about it being kind of tricky to handle and tough to get to lay flat without air bubbles. It’s enough for Blake to hear what she’s not saying - that she doesn’t want Blake messing it up.

It shouldn’t bother her as much as it does.

It’s not like renovations and DIY house projects have ever been something she was interested in before moving in with Yang anyway.

It’s dumb to feel hurt over, it’s not like it’s a big deal.

That doesn’t make it suck any less. Doesn’t make it taste any less of this sour sting.

She tries to read.

The muscles under Yang’s tank top are far more interesting than her novel.

The streaks Yang effortlessly smooths out in the drywall mud tells a story that she’s much more invested in than the book in her lap she’s read at least a dozen times.

When Yang catches her watching, she doesn’t tease, doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even hold the stare - just passes off a quick smile and focuses back on the task at hand.

It shouldn’t feel like such a devastating change, shouldn’t feel as deeply bothersome as it cuts.

Blake shifts to lean her back against the couch’s armrest, turned so she can’t keep staring, and settles into her book.

\----

The frustration and guilt around not being good enough to help out anymore builds until it spews over. It’s something she tries to tamp down, doesn’t want to burden Yang with any worse than she probably already has, but it sits rotting in the pit of her stomach until it spills out.

It bothers her so persistently one day that she can’t keep it down anymore. She broaches the subject at dinner when her tethered patience reaches a breaking point, wanting to bury this stupid upset before it steals any more of her time, put to rest this hollow thing swallowing her around the edges.

Pushing around the food on her plate without eating it, she pries the subject open. 

“Hey, so I know I’m not really good at all this construction stuff, but I hope I haven’t messed anything up for you with it.”

Yang’s head jerks up like she’s startled. “What?”

“I just mean, well, I hope I haven’t been making more work for you in the long run. And if you still need someone to just hand you a fan you’re installing or simple things like that, I’d still like to help out, even if you don’t want me working on anything more complicated than that.” Saying it out loud makes Blake all too aware of how many of her insecurities are fastened fast to the coughed out words.

Yang stares dumbly at her in silence for a moment before speaking - trying to speak - through a dry mouthful of biscuit. “What?” she repeats, sounding incredulous, leaving Blake trying not to cringe at her stupid insecurities laid so bare.

Yang’s baffled look doesn’t help the discomfort squirming in Blake’s stomach.

“I just- I mean- My help doesn’t have to be anything super involved since I obviously don’t know what I’m doing. But I-” she pauses to clear her throat, fighting back betraying emotion that has no reason to be bubbling up in such full force right now. “Well, I’ve really enjoyed helping out. So if you could still use an extra pair of hands sometime just, uh, let me know, I guess.”

“Why would you think you’ve messed anything up? You haven’t messed anything up.” And Yang’s looking at her more intently, more solidly now than she has for days. It’s a level of attention she’s been dying for but sits all wrong right now, leaves Blake shifting uncomfortably under its weight.

“Oh. I just thought - I mean, you haven’t really been getting me to help lately and so I just thought - well, there had to be a reason, right?”

“Oh.” Yang sits back in her chair, finally breaks the heavy look laid across Blake. But then she’s snapping up straight-backed and wide open, staring at Blake again full force. “Oh, fuck. No, gods no, Blake. That’s not- shit. I’m so sorry you thought that. I’ve been trying not to ask for help because I thought I was probably getting on your nerves with all this stuff.” She shakes her head like trying to get rid of the thought. “You’ve been great. You’re a natural, really. Great attention to detail and you’re a really fast learner. I’m so sorry that’s what you thought.”

She’s going to die. Her face is definitely red enough that there can’t be enough blood in the rest of her body for it to be functioning properly. Gods, she’s an idiot. An insecure, overly-sensitive idiot.

“Oh. Right. Okay. Thanks.”

It doesn’t account for the shift in Yang’s behavior toward her though, the drop off of quick comments and her curling smiles, but it’s enough to soothe the bubbling guilt in Blake’s stomach, replaced now with embarrassment over being so obviously insecure in front of Yang. But the burn is better than the sickening pulse of worry, and though she scarfs down the rest of dinner quickly to get away from this awkward talk, it’s a taste of relief to know she’s not been the problem she thought she was.

Still, she misses living with someone she’s familiar enough with to read easily. 

\----

It takes one of the seldom evenings that Yang isn’t home in time for dinner for Blake to realize how accustomed she’s come to having Yang hanging around filling up the space with sound and chatter, how tough it’s been with things so stilted between them lately. 

The house is quiet enough it feels a little eerie, the sky outside a sunken, deep grey of storm clouds that’ll spill any minute, casting a forlorn gloom over Blake no matter how many lights she turns on.

She patches up the holes of silence with upbeat music and wraps herself in her fuzzy blue blanket, ready to face the imminent rain with a steaming mug of tea in hand as she settles in at the table. Her blank new sketch pad eagerly awaits her first steps back into art she’s been drawn away from for biting years.

It doesn’t come easily to her to pick up a pencil and put it to paper, scrape up some splinter of inspiration from the cobweb corners of her mind. Her head feels as stark as the mocking empty page in front of her.

She should start small, something simple to stretch old muscles that haven’t moved in ages, something not complicated enough to feel defeated by. She needs a win.

She’s not really sure what that looks like anymore. Maybe torn down drywall and freshly painted rooms. Maybe a phone call home and walking out a door she swears she’ll never step foot through again.

A crack of thunder rattles the windows, serves a spectacular distraction for a fleeting moment. The thunder beats the rain on its way down by only a few moments, a sweeping rush of indignant droplets spreading out in loud protest against the roof. It falls in blankets, a torrent just outside the back door window Blake can’t pull her eyes away from.

Not until Bee is suddenly plopping heavy paws onto her thigh and trying to haul herself impossibly into Blake’s lap, at least. It’s funny at first, as off guard as it catches Blake. Bee’s always been friendly but Yang is the only one Blake’s seen her actively seek out to cuddle. The humor of the situation wears off with the second crash of thunder and Bee’s efforts turning more frantic, her tucked tail rigid and entire body shivering as she astoundingly manages to climb onto the chair with Blake.

“Oh god, you’re heavier than you look, aren’t ya, sweetheart?” Blake grumbles softly as she wraps her arms around Bee to try to comfort her.

Except Bee won’t stay still long enough to be comforted, shifting across Blake’s lap with digging paws that Blake’s pretty sure she’ll have bruises from come tomorrow.

“Ow, okay hold on, this isn’t working. Get down.” She points to the floor, mimicking motions she’s seen Yang implement with Bee in the past.

Except when Yang does it Bee listens and though Blake’s never tried it before until now, she doesn’t seem to have the same authority Yang does. Or maybe it just doesn’t make it through the haze of anxiety radiating off of Bumblebee right now.

“Okay, come on. Let’s go to the couch. You can sit on me there instead.” She motions again, snapping her fingers as she points to the floor but Bee only wiggles again and continues to shake until Blake scoots the chair back from the table and shifts as if to stand.

It does the trick, Bumblebee timidly crawling out of her lap, one paw at a time instead of jumping like she usually would. She presses against Blake’s legs as Blake stands and gathers her blanket around her shoulders, abandons her tea and sketchpad at the table.

The way Bumblebee hugs against her makes it hard not to trip on the short walk to the couch and Blake finds herself chuckling despite Bee’s obvious distress. It takes her no time at all to clamber back into Blake’s lap the moment she’s seated again.

Unsure how to settle Bee down, Blake tries to wrap the blanket around them each, runs her fingers scrubbing through Bee’s fur to distract but there’s nothing for it. When her agitation pushes Bee to start trying to climb between Blake and the back of the couch, gaining altitude as she wedges herself halfway to Blake’s shoulders and the top of the couch, Blake knows this is beyond her bank of knowledge.

She finds herself humming softly as she fishes for her phone to call for backup, outsource a solution. It’s maybe a little silly to hope humming might help calm a dog but she’s willing to try about anything at this point to keep her from further heights.

“Hey!” Yang answers on the third ring, sounding far too chipper for the moment. Blake wonders what power tool is in her hand to cause that tone.

“Hey, uh, is it storming there? Cause it’s storming pretty bad here and Bee is kinda freaking out.” As if to prove her point Bee shifts again, working her way between Blake and the armrest, blunt nails biting into Blake’s thigh again as she goes. Blake tries to suppress the “ow” that shoots to the tip of her tongue.

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry. Bumblebee hates big storms. The vet prescribed some— wait, shit, I think I forgot to call in a refill after the last storm. It’s been a while, so I’m not sure. You can check in my medicine cabinet for her bottle of Xanax but I think it’s empty. Fuck, I’m such a bad dog mom. And roommate. I’m so sorry, I know she’s a handful. I was just about done here anyway so I’ll head home now. It’s almost impossible to calm her down when she gets like this so don’t feel bad if she’s freaking out. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Finally starting to grow accustomed to Yang’s anxiety rambles, Blake only silently nods along until Yang’s rush of words runs down, barely manages to squeeze in a light “It’s okay” before Yang hangs up on her and she’s left to regroup efforts and strategy for calming the inconsolable.

First step, the medicine cabinet, just in case Bee’s meds aren’t out.

Bee hugs so close against Blake’s leg on her way to the master bathroom it’s a wonder she doesn’t trip. Under different circumstances it would be annoying, ranging on funny, but instead it just stirs heavy sympathy. She remembers what it was like to be afraid of storms. Before she found petty, empowering reasons to love them instead.

Yang’s medicine cabinet is a bit of a mess but thankfully all the medicine bottles within are grouped together on a single narrow shelf. It’s a little alarming how many bottles there are, a quick tally adds up to 6, most of the labels resting inward or to the side so she’s left turning one after another out-facing until she finds one with Bumblebee’s name across the top line.

It’s hard not to notice the drawn-out alphabetical slew of made-up sounding medications bearing Yang Xiao Long on the labels. Feeling like she’s already crossing boundaries even touching them, she tries to scrub from her mind the bits of words that stick.

Pulling Bee’s singular bottle from the rest, 4 of which are now facing out, Blake’s heart sinks a little even as she lifts it, the lack of weight spelling out the worst case scenario even before she gives it a shake to be certain. 

To double check, desperate now as another swell of thunder rolls through the air and Bee gives a keen whine and presses so hard into Blake leg she has to grab the countertop to keep from falling, she glances at the label to make sure it is indeed Xanax instead of, by some stroke of luck, some other medication of Bee’s that happens to be out rather than what she needs now - and admittedly in the squirming, uncomfortable hope that not all the other bottles are Yang’s, two labels still turned in away from Blake’s prying eyes.

But the bottle reads Xanax and suggests “take one as needed for severe anxiety during storms” and Blake’s left setting the empty bottle on Yang’s bathroom countertop and closing the cabinet to hide a bursting of questions now sprouting in her mind.

One worry at a time, and Bee’s current worry is big enough to take up all of Blake’s allotted preoccupation for the time being.

“Okay, Bee, looks like we’re doing this the old-fashioned way. Do you wanna hop up in bed?” Blake hesitates at the doorway of the master bath, frown teetering as she weighs Yang’s bed versus hers.

One the one hand, Bee’s definitely more comfortable in Yang’s bed - also arguably Bee’s bed - than Blake’s, having never actually been in Blake’s in the first place. But on the other hand, Yang isn’t here this time inviting Blake to make herself at home in her comforters, and climbing into her bed alone feels oddly like crossing a line, treading along a narrow divide of intimacy Blake’s not even sure what to do with. Especially lately with the weird distance now sitting between them.

With a little grimace and huff she shakes herself free from frozen indecision and ushers them both into her own room. It takes no coaxing at all to get Bee to follow along, even climbing freely into her bed without much prodding.

She’s not sure exactly what she expected once she’s seated in the bed but Bee seems to decide Blake leaning back into pillows propped at her headboard is an invitation to try climbing up her chest. Despite groomed paws, her rounded nails bite into the tender skin of Blake’s stomach and chest and upper arms as they both struggle to find some way to accommodate the ridiculous positions Bee stumbles around to find.

“Ah fuck, Bee, okay no, stop. Gods, fuck me for thinking Xanax was a little extreme when Yang first mentioned it. Stop, what are you even trying to do? Where do you think you’re going to end up?” Frantic shifting around lands heavy front paws on top of Blake’s shoulder and a cold nose tucked, huffing, into the nonexistent space between her neck and the pillow she’s leaned against.

“What is the plan here?” Blake’s balance slowly succumbs to Bee’s added weight, leaving her slumping to the side inch by inch. Bee doesn’t seem to mind, a better angle to hide behind. “Your mom better have a better plan for dealing with you when she gets home.”

\----

It turns out she does. Kind of.

If scooping Bee up into her arms and bouncing her around the house like a fussy baby is a plan.

When Yang starts humming a soothing tune Blake feels a silly stroke of vindication at having tried the same thing earlier, though her results didn’t produce anything half as rewarding as Yang’s swaying and squeezing Bee seems to. Her frantic shuffling tones down a little after Yang shifts her so her front paws and head are cradled over one shoulder and Yang’s got an arm supporting her ass and back.

It looks absolutely ridiculous.

That doesn’t stop Blake from snapping a few adorable pictures of it though.

\----

A symphony of rain continues to clatter on the roof, wind loud enough to whistle and thunder rumbling an accompanying percussion of bassy notes beneath. Despite Bee’s distress, it’s music to Blake’s ears.

It takes the storm calming down a little, noise leveling out, for Blake to hear a slow _ drip-drip-drip _ inside the house. It strikes a lash of worry through her, the first bit she’s felt at this storm, the implications of a leak somewhere in the house getting to her more than it probably should. What if it was from taking down the walls? What if it was from something she had done wrong? And gods, if so, how angry was Yang going to be with her when she realized?

Regardless of her surging fear, she looks around to try to find the leak, calls out to Yang for some help, though she’s not sure how effective she’ll be with her arms full of dog. 

But an armful of Bee turns out to be a moot point when Yang wanders back into the living room and gives a short shout, shaking out a socked foot with a glare at the ceiling.

“Found it,” she grumbles, awkwardly trying to balance on one foot while she does her best to bring the other high enough to reach the hand under Bee’s ass to pull off her sock.

“Stop, idiot, you’re going to fall,” Blake scolds her, cherry grin popping off her lips at the sight. “Here.” Blake scrunches up her nose as she hooks a finger in the band of Yang’s sock and pulls it off before flinging the wet thing at her. She feels awful when Yang turns to duck out of the way and it hits Bee instead.

“Wow, Blake,” Yang scoffs in exaggerated offense, “way to kick a Bee when she’s down!” Yang’s grin bubbles up through her obvious efforts to keep it buckled down.

It’s enough to leave a flying feeling in Blake’s chest. It’s the most normal interaction they’ve had for days.

“I’m so sorry, Bee,” she coos, stepping closer to the two as Yang swirls around for Blake to pet Bee’s head still tucked over her shoulder. Blake’s other hand almost makes it to rest on Yang’s back before all the distance risen up between them lately settles like dust back in the forefront of Blake’s head and she yanks her hand back safely to her side.

Yang turns further around to look at where she stepped in the water dripping from the ceiling, eyes turned up to survey the source. “Looks like we’re gonna have to go up on the roof tomorrow if it’s stopped raining by then. You aren’t afraid of heights, are ya?” Yang poses Blake’s way, turning back around to face her as she asks.

She’s not, but her heart leaps anyway at the idea. Not at the prospect of climbing a ladder or walking around on a roof, but at the thought of Yang including her again. At Yang not being mad or even looking to place blame in the first place. And of course she isn’t. That should’ve been obvious to Blake from the start.

“No. Not afraid at all.” 

Yang beams at her. “Good. I promise I won’t let you fall.”

She’s not so sure about that. 

\----

Yang wakes up ages before her alarm is set to jerk her out of sleep. It takes her groggy moments to realize what woke her, moments of stupored, sluggish rolling in her blankets before an alarm rings across the hall through a closed door, sounding in the silence for a stunted moment before it abruptly cuts off.

Anticipation of Blake’s alarm had roused her. 

The fluttering feeling in her chest at the realization isn’t helpful. 

Bee lifts her head and stares toward Yang’s open door for a few solid beats before Blake’s door across the way cracks open with a timid peel, and carefully muted footsteps jog Bee shooting off the end of the bed to follow her.

Yang rolls over, chasing continued sleep down deeper in her blankets. 

Muffled sounds tiptoe from the kitchen down the hall through Yang’s open door, spell out letter by letter, careful movement by movement, Blake’s morning routine of making breakfast for herself and Bee. Spluttering of the coffee maker trickles softly from the kitchen, empty of the heady scent of coffee grounds, and Yang can easily picture Blake’s tea steeping through the filter, hears the pop of a toaster, and buries a stupidly silly twist of her lips into her pillow case at this mapped out pace of Blake’s world Yang’s become so familiar enough with to anticipate.

She can’t make out the words but hears Blake’s gravely morning voice peak high in a tone obviously addressed to Bee. A tinkling jangle of Bee’s collar tags paints the unmistakable image of her dog’s head being scratched.

Layer after layer of affection filters through, piles in on Yang until she’s drowning in this humble, warm morning of stacked-together normalcy. It’s the familiarity of it all that does her in, the way Blake makes home out of this house more than any coats of paint or torn down walls ever will, ever could.

It takes everything she’s got to knock back these surges of affection, tow these tuggings in her chest out of dangerous waters. There’s a tight line she’s been trying to draw around her feelings, one she’s mindfully worked to keep snug, but it’s slipping horribly and it’s obvious from the way Blake’s been reacting to it that it’s sending all the wrong messages.

She turns over and pretends to be fast asleep when the soft slipping of Blake’s socked feet and Bee’s pattering footsteps reclaim the hallway. Bee splits off from Blake’s path, hedging back into Yang’s room as Blake slips smoothly into her own room again and shuts her door with a muted click.

Yang lifts her sheet up for Bee to crawl under to spoon and shrugs deeper into the covers as Bee settles back down to sleep a little longer.

A hazy buzzing in Yang’s limbs keeps her from fading back to sleep until Blake sneaks back down the hallway and out the door to work. The house feels colder, starkly emptier with the gentle thud of the outside door cutting closed. Yang buries her nose deeper against Bee’s fur and tries to pretend she didn’t wake up before her alarm in the first place.

Dreams of toast, tea, and a dark head of hair trickle through her mind like liquid flame. She wakes to an alarm blaring, far more disruptive than when she woke earlier this morning. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I'm so excited for the next chapter I'm about to pop. I can't wait to show it to you. I'm already mostly finished with it so assuming nothing huge happens in my life I should be posting it before too terribly long. 
> 
> I'd love to hear how you all felt about this chapter. It was a really fun one to write.
> 
> Comments? Questions? Rude remarks? Drop me a line below to share your thoughts.


	6. tracing boundaries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Endless thanks to thequeenofthieves for beta reading this chapter and keeping me encouraged for so many weeks while I struggled to finish it. 
> 
> **Trigger warning for discussion of past abuse. **

It’s weird, honestly, to be so looking forward to getting off work just to go home and do more work. But Blake’s been buzzing since she woke up this morning, ready to get her shift squarely behind her so she can go reclaim her place helping Yang fix up the Haven. It’s been startling to realize just how much she’s missed working on all the projects Yang lays out for them to chip away at, maybe almost as much as she’s missed Yang herself. Well, maybe not.

When Yang started shutting her out of it, it was easy to assume the restless feeling churning in her chest was solely from the sudden change in dynamic between them. But even with Yang slowly loosening up again after Blake had broached the subject, and with their interactions shifting back to something more normal, there’s still something that’s been missing.

And then the leak happened, and Yang very clearly invited Blake to help her fix it, and suddenly the prospect of that invitation wasn’t just excitement over being welcomed back into spending time with Yang. The idea of a project itself struck at a cord that’s left Blake looking forward to it just as much as spending time with Yang.

It’s silly, but there it is.

Plus she’s never fixed a roof before. It’ll be nice to add another experience to her growing list of house rehab know-how.

She can’t help the extra skip in her step as she clocks out and slips out to her car. The drive home from work flies by, mile by dissolving mile putting her that much closer to jumping back into this rhythm with Yang, this relationship with the house. And it’s truly become that, a relationship. Something she’s building, something she tends. It’s organic and lively in a way a house has never really felt to her before. Sturdy, like every new piece she works on settles her feet a little more firmly in this new life she’s making for herself.

It’s… freeing.

Which is bizarre since staying put has never felt very freeing before this.

Disappointingly, Yang’s truck is missing from the driveway when Blake pulls in at home. It takes no small effort to break off her worry that Yang’s changed her mind so quickly, that she’s retreating again from this moving line between them.

Shoving down the bite of bitterness on the back of her tongue, Blake marches inside, planning to grab something to eat before anything else, something to feed her grumpiness, try to soothe it down. Something to do to fill the time she hopes to give Yang to get home.

She doesn’t have much of an appetite but makes herself eat anyway, dragging out some leftovers and mechanically chewing each reheated bite, pointedly ignoring her phone on the table that lacks any texts from Yang about the plan for today. Only when she’s done eating, done washing her plate and silverware, done changing out of work clothes, done deliberately picking out house-work clothes (refusing to believe she doesn’t have reason to be putting them on), only then does she allow herself to call Yang to check in.

When Yang doesn’t pick up, her stomach ties in knots so tight she’s not sure how she’s going to go about undoing them.

When Yang’s name lights up her screen not five minutes later, her twined excitement and dread has swelled to a palpable degree. She hesitates just a moment before answering.

“Hey, Blake, I’m on my way home now. You off from work already?” A heavy rush of relief spills out of Blake like a leak. “I had to run over to my dad’s to pick up his extension ladder for the roof.”

A foolish flood of upended anxiety threatens to wash her away on its escape. She doesn’t realize it’s kept her from speaking until a hesitant tone from Yang pulls her out of her head and back to the conversation.

“You are still up for helping me with that, right?” She sounds about as worried as Blake’s been feeling since she got home. It’s nice to know she’s not alone in this, in how wrapped up she’s felt all day counting on this loose plan between them.

“Yes!” She jumps to answer, shaking off the static of her own thoughts swelling up. “Yeah, I’m definitely still up for it.”

“Good.” Yang’s smile is clear in her tone.

It brings a matching one out from Blake so that she’s left just standing there in the kitchen grinning openly at the empty air, clutching her phone and this fuzzy feeling all tangled up in her chest where a tangle of knots had been moments before. The following silence that spools out then feels heavy and full and only uncomfortable when Blake realizes how stupid she must look staring off into nothing over such a wide grin.

“Right. Okay. Well I’ll see you soon then?” Blake asks once she’s shaken herself from being frozen, so tied up in relief and this overwhelming content feeling that always crowds in on her when it comes to Yang.

Yang drags in an audible breath and clears her throat. “Yeah.” It’s nice not to be the only one feeling a little breathless over nothing. “Yeah, see you soon.”

“Cool. Uh, bye.” She hangs up before Yang can say anything more, too busy smashing her face down onto her crossed arms on the table. “Get a hold of yourself,” she groans, quickly double checking after to make sure she did in fact hang up properly. Gods, wouldn’t that be embarrassing…

Waiting for Yang to get home is a calmer affair this time, what without the gnawing fear that the olive branch offered last night hasn’t been rescinded in the light of day.

Blake makes herself stay put in her chair when she hears Yang’s truck pull up.

Yang looks unfairly beautiful walking in the door, hair all pulled loosely to one side, muscles in her arms highlighted by the tank top she’s wearing and the weight of the heavy ladder she’s decided to bring through the door rather than the gate to the backyard.

“Mind getting the back door for me?” she asks in lieu of a hello.

Blake’s muscles jump at the chance to get out of the chair, shrug off her demand to stay calm and settled to not broadcast how eager she’s feeling.

It takes Yang a bit of maneuvering to get the ladder out the second door, driving home as she goes just how dumb an idea it was to bring it through this way. But it gives Blake some extra time to admire Yang’s muscles she’s definitely not staring at, so she’s not complaining.

It’s only once the ladder is set up against the gutters that it really hits Blake that they’re going to be going up on the roof. She isn’t afraid of heights, but she’s only been on a roof once before and that was by climbing out of Ilia’s window when they were kids back in Menagerie. Looking at the ladder perched at the edge of the roof, it’s a little hard to envision how stepping from the ladder rungs to the roof itself is supposed to work.

Yang must be able to read the hesitance in her expression. “Not having second thoughts now, are ya? It’s not as scary as it looks from down here. It can feel a little tricky the first few times getting up and down so I’ll go up first to show you how, and give you a hand if need be on the last step.”

“Oh good, that’ll give you a nice aerial view of me falling.” Blake grimaces dryly, shooting for levity more for herself than anything else.

Yang’s answering grin is lopsided and her eye roll fond. The ease of it rests for a beat, noticeable and blessedly normal. “Nah, you’ll be fine. Promise.”

“Alright,” Blake says, clapping her hands together and cracking her neck to each side. “So what do we need to fix a leaking roof, anyway? This is new territory for me.”

“Well fuck, _ I _ don’t know. I was hoping you did.” Blake’s jaw drops before Yang’s expression breaks and spills up the smile she’s struggling to suppress. “Kidding.”

“Hilarious.” Blake rolls her eyes but her own smile slips out.

Yang’s laughs over her shoulder as she heads back inside. “C’mon, I’ve a bucket of tar in the truck. I’ll explain the process once we’re up there.”

\----

The process, it turns out, is less involved than Blake might’ve imagined.

Yang goes up first, like promised, and offers a steadying hand as Blake follows up behind her, frowning at the top of the ladder as she tries to figure out how to step around the part of the ladder sticking up past the edge without losing her balance or knocking the ladder over behind her.

Yang had made it look so easy, almost graceful even, but Blake is nothing close to graceful as she essentially crawls her way onto the roof. The look on Yang’s face leaves little doubt in Blake’s mind that getting up looked as pitiful as she felt like it had. She’s glad this roof isn’t as steep as some roofs she’s seen, her balance already feeling enough off-center as it is.

And then, like it’s nothing to her, Yang goes right back down the ladder to bring up their tools, swinging her foot onto a rung like she does this daily.

Squatting near the ladder, Blake takes the short string of supplies Yang hands her on the return trip — a hammer, a gallon bucket of tar, one of those paint stir stick things, and a plastic bag. Blake takes her time setting them on the roof a few steps up from the ladder, carefully making sure they don’t go sliding down from the slant. But then she turns back around and finds Yang peeking over the roof edge with a long wrap of extension cord looped over one shoulder, the other end trailing down to the ground behind her.

Blake glances back to the supplies laid out behind her, scouring for any sign of a tool that might need electricity. Yang just tosses the cord up onto the roof and disappears back down the ladder once more. Blake can’t get near enough to edge to see what she’s grabbing now, and isn’t stupid enough to try leaning over to see. She’s not sure what she’s expecting Yang to bring back next but a cumbersome leaf blower definitely isn’t it.

“The gutters probably haven’t been cleaned in years,” Yang says when she catches Blake gaping at her. That’s all she says. Like that explains it.

Considering there’s a scattering of plant shoots sprouting out of the backlog of dirt and leaves in the gutters, it’s definitely a safe guess. But despite Blake’s sorely limited knowledge of gutter maintenance, somehow, wielding a leaf blowing against the mess isn’t something that’s ever occurred to her as part of that process.

“Don’t people usually do that by hand?” is the best Blake can come up with in reply.

“Well sure, plenty do, but that takes forever. I figure while we’re up here I can do it the easy way. Plus there are a bunch of leaves up here to blow off.” She pulls her hair back into a messy ponytail before nodding toward a scatter of leaves and fallen sticks littering the roof. “It’ll make your part of the job much easier if that’s all gone.”

“My part?”

“Yeah, you’re going to be dealing with the leak, and future possible leaks, while I tackle the gutters.” Yang ties the end of the extension cord in a simple knot with the end of the leaf blower’s plug before plugging the ends together and letting the cords drop onto the roof.

A wave of apprehension laps over Blake at the idea of handling the leaks by herself despite still not knowing quite what the job consists of.

“Alright, let me get you started and show you what you’re looking for.” Yang marches across the roof confidently, the angled decline barely seeming to register with her. Blake herself picks her way across the roof carefully, stomach tight from the way some of the steps across the roof give a little more than others. But Yang steps in the same places Blake crosses and she doesn’t seem worried at all so Blake pushes her fears down firmly and focuses on the task at hand.

Yang guides them to the place on the roof that seems roughly where the leaking spot in the ceiling started and crouches down. Blake follows suit, placing a flat palm on the rough texture of the shingles to steady herself.

“Alright, so what we’re looking for are nail pops, places where a roofing nail under the shingles has worked its way up. Sometimes they’ll be pushing a shingle up from underneath it, which makes it easier to spot. But other times they poke through the shingle completely, just a little, usually, but it’s enough to let water leak through. Your job is to spot them, hammer them back down, and then dab a little bit of tar over the spot to seal it back up. We’ll start here and see if we can find the leak from last night, but while we’re up here we should check for others. I’ll help with the first one to make sure you know how to do it and then I’ll leave you to look for any others you might find.”

It takes a few minutes of close scrutinizing the roof before Blake finds a small spot that may be what they’re looking for. She points it out to Yang and gets an excited, celebratory “Yes!” in reply as they huddle over it to get a better look.

From Blake’s perspective, the nail looks hardly loose at all but there’s an obvious, tiny hole it’s made near a shingle’s bottom edge where the nail has broken through. Yang hands the hammer over to Blake to nail it back down, peeling up the end of the shingle for Blake to give a hearty _ wack _to get it lying flush again.

“Great, now we just need to cover the hole with tar, and spread some extra tar here on the bottom of the shingle so it seals back down well and won’t go flapping around or flying off if it gets windy.” Yang fishes a paint can opener out of her jeans pocket and works the tar can’s lid off.

The stir stick turns out to be their method of doling out dabs of tar, the plastic bag simply a resting place to put the stick so it doesn’t pick up gritty debris from the shingles or leave slashes of sticky tar across the roof for them to step in or for leaves to get stuck to.

Blake follows Yang’s direction, struggling a little with the sticky, soupy mess of tar, trying not to leave stringy black streaks everywhere or go overboard on how much she scoops out. Yang is patient in her guidance and the back and forth between them feels comfortable enough to let Blake forget how weird things have been for a bit.

“Perfect. You’re a natural at this. Now I’m gonna get started blowing these leaves off. I’ll start at the peak and work my way down and you can go in behind me to see if you see any other nail pops. It’ll be kind of loud so just give a big wave if you need to get my attention for anything.”

And then Yang leaves her to it while she goes to blow the leaves off the rest of the roof. Yang makes much quicker work of her part of the job than Blake takes scouring rows of shingles, strip by strip, eyes peeled for any little inconsistency that might be a nail sticking up. She manages to find two more before Yang finishes the surface of the roof and starts in on the gutters, trusting Blake to manage the nail pops all on her own, no supervision required.

After having worried she’s been fucking things up, it’s both encouraging and frightening. What if she fucks this up now?

Usually Yang is close enough to keep an eye on her handiwork, to lend guidance or advice as she goes, course correct Blake if need be. But this is different. This is blind trust, unsupervised and unattended. Unquestioning. And admittedly, the task itself doesn’t seem like the hardest thing she’s done yet, nothing too terribly catastrophic to get wrong even if she does fuck up. But still, it’s a little nerve-wracking to be trusted so easily with something like this.

A treasured warmth settles just below her rib cage as she keeps searching for protruding nails in the area Yang’s blown clear for her. Together, working apart, they set about tending to the roof, hunting down leaks, sealing over small holes, and cleaning out gutters clogged by years of backlog. There’s a lot to be said for patching up places where the outside might get in drip by drip, wearing away at progress and already-repaired places.

It’s just the sort of project she’s been needing, something meaningful and necessary to fix regardless of how invisible the work will be when it’s done. It’s nice to have a reminder that sometimes progress is in the minuscule, the unseen, the unnoticed.

It takes her a bit to find her footing and settle into the balance of standing on the roof. She’s never quite confident in the grip her shoes have on the shingles. The texture of the shingles underfoot should be reassuring, but instead each step feels like the grit is as likely to slough off as it is to stay put on the shingle. That’s how it seems at least, though it doesn’t look like her footsteps leave a trail of shingles with the grit all knocked off of them as she moves on to the next patch. It just… takes some getting used to.

After a while, it hits her that she’s actually starting to enjoy being on the roof. She’s still dreading the climb down, tries not to think too much about that — well, the getting back on the ladder part of getting down, at least — but it’s really not all bad.

A slight, cool breeze brushes by every so often, rustling the leaves of the looming tree draped over the far end of the house. From up here she has a good view of Bee sniffing around the edge of her fence and Yang slowly clearing the gutters via leaf blower in smooth, confident motions, acting for all the world like she isn’t standing right near the end of the roof.

It takes some effort to silence her anxiety at watching Yang calmly pace along that edge, only one misstep from falling. Swallowing, she drags her attention back to her own task and fixes her eyes on the roof underfoot, trying to find her way back to that bit of enjoyment she had stumbled onto at being up here.

She encounters one more nail pop to patch up by the time she’s done and ready to get down. Yang still has the front strip of gutters to finish but breaks away from it to help Blake negotiate her way back down the ladder.

It’s almost as bad as she’s feared, but Yang holds the top of it for her after showing Blake how to swing her leg around to the rungs and the lurch in her stomach as she twists around only last a second before she’s balanced on the ladder and her feet have firmly touched down on it. She swallows hard and only realizes how she’s standing there with her eyes squeezed shut when Yang’s chuckle above her pulls her out of it.

Crouched down as she is to hold the top of the ladder, Yang’s face is quite close when Blake opens her eyes. Yang reaches a finger out to tuck a sweaty lock of Blake’s hair behind her ear and it’s impossible not to feel the blood in her cheeks burn at the touch. She hopes she’s already pink enough from the heat outside for it to mask her blush.

“Most people do better climbing down when they keep their eyes open,” Yang says softly, amusement written all over her lips.

It’s hard not to stare at them, especially this close, and even more so after Yang swipes her tongue across them like that.

“Thanks for the tip. You should write an idiot’s guide to ladders or something,” Blake huffs and takes her first step back down, desperate to put a little space between them so she can think more clearly. “Want to hand me the can of tar and the hammer so you won’t have so much to bring down on your own when you’re done?”

“You sure you can manage them?” Yang asks genuinely, checking now, rather than teasing.

“Yeah, I think I’ve got it now.”

“Alright.” Yang grabs the can and hands it down gently, careful not to jostle the ladder, and Blake is certainly thankful for her mindfulness. “I’ve got just a bit more to do on these gutters but then I’ll be down, too. How was your first time fixing a roof?”

“It was good. Maybe a little bit scary getting up and down, but not as bad as I feared. Thanks for letting me help.”

“Happy to have you.” Yang holds her gaze, heavy and sincere, as she hands the hammer down to Blake’s open hand.

It takes some effort to swallow and turn her attention back to the ladder to climb her way down safely. Her heart racing has nothing to do with the possibility of losing her footing.

\---

Rain pours in sheets so heavy and constant Blake can’t see ten feet past the front of the coffee shop. Inside it’s warm and calm, the storm keeping business slow with no one wanting to be caught out in this waterfall, the wind kicking up harshly enough to rip the rain into diagonal slashes that umbrellas have little chance to protect against.

It’s almost 8, the daylight drawn and dark, the sun having just dipped below the horizon after playing hide and seek with the clouds all day. It’s been an hour since Blake has seen a customer, the quiet lull playing welcome host to her uplifted mood spurred on by the wailing wind and washing rain.

A quick flash of white light winks through the windows, barely a moment’s warning before a deafening crack of thunder whips sharply through the air, drowning out the chorus of the rain stuttering across the store’s rooftop. It’s music to Blake’s ears.

“Holy shit,” Coco curses, stumbling out of the back. “That one must have been close.” Her steps are hurried, clipboard in hand, as she retreats from solitary inventorying to seek human company over that of stacks of to-go cups in the back. “You alright out here, Belladonna?” she asks, like Blake was the one seeking safety in numbers against a force that pays them no mind.

“Mhmm,” Blake hums, content in wiping down the back counter, scrubbing at a line of sugary residue Sun left from the earlier rush before the overcast day spilled the promise of rain it had been threatening. “I don’t think we’re gonna be very busy the rest of the night, though.”

Coco grimaces as she looks over the counts on her clipboard, eying the stack of cups under the counter for her tally. “Yeah, I have half a mind to close early. As soon as I finish these counts you can clock out for the night; no reason for us both to stick around this ghost town.”

“It’s alright, I really don’t mind it,” Blake assures, ducking around the counter to start wiping down tables and chairs. And she doesn’t mind. More than doesn’t mind; the coffee shop’s large windows and warm lighting is the perfect cozy spot for Blake to bask in the storm, soak it in while staying dry.

As much as the Haven is coming along well - loads better than it had been when she first moved in - there is something alluring in how clear the drowning sound of the rain hitting the store’s roof is, of the way the whole store blinks when a crest of lightning flogs across the sky. The fact that there’s no dog trying to climb into Blake’s lap for comfort is only an added bonus. The torrent is peaceful here, as loud and present and commanding as it deserves to be, and Blake is happy to bear it witness.

Coco eyes her carefully over her glasses, a perched eyebrow weighing her. “What’s got you in such a good mood?”

Another call of thunder rattles the sky and Blake can almost feel it in her chest this time, tries to soak it in, hang on to every last vibration like little broken breaths.

She shrugs, not bothering to wipe away the content smile hanging on the corner of her lips. “I just love thunderstorms I guess.”

It’s not the whole truth. Or rather, it’s only the surface level of the truth, a simple sentiment that hides so much, a score of countless moments added up and stacked together in the back of her mind, a symphony of nature that’s played just for her enough times to make her want to sing along. The weight of it is buried in every flash of lightning and each rumbling accompaniment of thunder, bearing back a bite of safety, a taste of a bigger bully not directed toward Blake, the sweet tang of someone else’s fear.

Her smile fights for more ground on her lips and she’s hard pressed not to give it - but Coco’s still watching her and she doesn’t want to look any more gleeful than she likely already does. No need to look like a lunatic.

The smile wins out a little though and she fights a blush at it, turns away and rolls her shoulders against the uncomfortable feeling of being too thinly veiled, giving away too much. “There’s just something cool about how powerful nature is. I think it’s neat.”

Coco snorts but lets it go, either sensing Blake’s embarrassment and taking pity on her, or not caring enough to give her a hard time about it. “To each their own. I personally hate it. It’s loud and sudden, and with the rain, it’s a nightmare to go anywhere. I hate feeling cooped up.”

Another crash of thunder breaks through their conversation like an objection and the lights flicker once then cut out completely. Through the darkness Blake can’t make out Coco clearly but her groan floats over the sound of the rain.

“Perfect. Just perfect. Well, looks like I get my wish of closing up early at least. Velvet’s going to kill me in the morning for leaving the closing checklist unfinished,” Coco grumbles under her breath in the dark, the clatter of the clipboard hitting the counter an echo behind it.

“The power went out, it’s not like you planned it. Besides, Velvet is a total softie, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Coco snorts and her phone lights up as Blake reaches for her own to shine a path to the front door. “You’ve obviously never worked a clopen shift with Velvet the next morning. She’s meticulous about the open and close checklists, and plenty of employees --ex-employees-- have figured they can slack off on the closing checklist and Velvet won’t say anything when she opens in the morning.” Working with her small pool of phone light, Coco starts disassembling the espresso machine to give it a rudimentary cleaning. “She’ll understand, sure, but she’s sensitive about people acting like they can walk all over her just because she’s nice.”

“Like she’d ever think you’re trying to walk all over her. You and I both know you’d never treat her like that, and Velvet knows it, too. She runs a tight ship but no one’s gonna try slacking off around you either. Velvet never complains about opening after you’ve closed.”

“That’s because I make sure to do it right so she doesn’t have to complain.”

Blake leaves her to the machine as she throws the lock on the front door and flips the light switch off to the open sign despite the lack of power. She trails into the back to turn off the stereo system so it won’t play overnight if the power comes back on before morning and muffles a curse as she clips her hip on the shelves in the back room. She eyes the broom in the corner and tries not to think about Velvet’s frustration in the morning when she’s stuck with sweeping up first thing.

Coco’s finished doing what little she can to clean the espresso machine by flashlight by the time Blake makes her way back toward the register to hold her light while Coco counts down the drawer. They move in practiced ease through the motions of what closing rhythms they can muster in the dark. Thunder growls again, a more distant grumble this time, the sky chewing gravel.

“Just leave a note for Velvet that you’re sorry and that you’ll find a way to make it up to her. I’m sure she won’t mind you being _ indebted _ to her,” Blake says, struggling against another grin and unable to keep her tone any straighter than her lips. The innuendo is as clear as the room is dark.

The shadows are heavy around them but through the dismal light of phones, Blake can still make out the glare Coco shoots toward her. “I’m gonna let that comment slide tonight, Belladonna, because I don’t have time to clean up a murder scene in the dark. And here I was almost coming to like you.”

Blake snorts but counts herself lucky anyway, the stern tone of affection clear in her warning despite the sentiment of hollow words. While Velvet is usually shy and blushing about the wired air of tension between them, any mention of it to Coco is better kept quiet for the safety of self and all others around. The apparent, and frankly hilarious, hanging attraction the two shift managers dance around is some days the best entertainment the coffee shop can scrounge up, especially on slow days like these.

Coco counts down the drawer in practiced ease, stacking her deposit together into an envelope and adding a scribbled note about the power outage and drawer total, grumbling quietly about being unable to print out the daily totals. Blake buries a smile at it, knowing it’s just another bullet point Velvet will have to make up in the morning that Coco will likely lose sleep over tonight.

As Coco ducks into the office with the deposit and register tray to store in the safe, Blake grabs her jacket and pulls out her keys, eying the dark shower of rain still thrumming outside. She tugs her hood up and shrugs as deeply into it as she can at the prospect of running to her car in this weather. Coco appears at her elbow and readies herself for her own rush out the door.

“Got everything?” she asks as she levels with the keypad near the back door, waiting for Blake’s murmured “Yeah,” before she punches in the alarm code and ushers Blake toward the door as the beeping countdown starts.

The first step out into the cold, closed-in night is miserable and utterly thorough in its efforts to soak them both. They each try to shield their phones from the rain as they hold out their only light sources and make a break for their cars parked not too far from each other.

“See you for drinks tomorrow,” Coco calls out through the wafting sheets of rain as they split off, keys clutched in her hand like a lifeline.

“Drive safe!” Blake shouts back before she manages to get her key in the car door and sling the doorway open to a safe haven from the torrent. “Ugh.” She shakes her head like Bee shakes to shed water after a bath, feeling more like a wet dog right now than she’d like. She turns on her car and sits in the parking lot until it stops squealing, as it often does upon startup, and is blowing warm air through the weathered vents.

Despite all of Coco’s efforts to appear distant and carefree, she waits, as she always does, for Blake to pull out of the lot before following, the twin beams of her headlights cutting through the rain in a show of protective solidarity that means more to Blake than Coco has any reason to know. It’s a willing step of precaution from her manager that Blake’s never taken for granted, especially considering the somewhat unreliable nature of her geriatric car.

The drive home is slow and tedious, rain washing out most of the view in front of her as she creeps down the roads at a fraction of the speed she can usually afford. A twenty minute cruise becomes a slogging thirty five minute drive strung out on high alert. The clatter of rain on her roof and the occasional rumbling of thunder are her only soundtracks, as the rain cuts down reception on her radio and turns music to static as thick as the view out her windshield.

The Haven utterly lives up to its namesake as she pulls in the drive and parks beside Yang’s truck, fruitlessly drawing her soaked hood back over her head for the dash inside.

A yellow lantern flashlight sits on the porch step (in a ziplock bag of all things, presumably to keep the rain out) and a note on the door tells Blake it’s unlocked. It truly feels like home, stepping through the threshold, despite the mostly dark inside that meets her.

A few lit candles on the table carve a feeble halo of light free from the dark, flames dancing lazily, filling the room with a sweet smell Blake can’t place, something citrus-y. She sets the bagged lantern on the table by the door and sheds her soggy jacket with a shiver.

Bee is nowhere to be seen, absent of her usual post by the door to greet anyone who braves the house and Yang is also absent from the living room, though the scent of dinner hangs vaguely in the air, traces of Yang never far away here. It smells like garlic and cheese, and with it comes the reminder that Blake hasn’t eaten since lunch.

A rounded boom of thunder rattles windowpanes, a feat that years ago would have shaken her but now readily yields a flickering smile instead, lights a chest full of kindling, a stomach full of comfort.

“Yang? I’m home early. The shop lost power, too,” Blake calls out and pulls the lantern free from the ziplock, treads down the hallway in search of her housemate.

“We’re back here. Bee’s finally starting to settle down and go to sleep.” A round, thin glow of light peeks out from Yang’s doorway into the hall, falling short there against the pressing darkness until Blake’s own circle of lantern light breaks it up.

Lit by a matching blue flashlight lantern sitting on the bedside table, Yang is propped in her bed with Bumblebee curled up impossibly small in her lap, though her limbs still spill over Yang’s own long legs. Bee’s eyelids are drooping and she looks astoundingly calm, especially considering the squirming mess she became during the last storm.

“I remembered to refill her prescription this time,” Yang says with a grin, both her hands lost in tufts of fur as she strokes Bee’s shoulder as she lulls to sleep. “She’ll be out like our lights any minute now. Thank gods for it, too. She was a wreck just thirty minutes ago.”

Blake adopts a look of pity for Bee, climbing onto Yang’s bed to scratch Bee’s head hello, goodnight.

“You hungry?” Yang asks as she works her way out from under Bumblebee’s deadweight. “I left dinner in the oven so it’d stay warm for ya.”

The hunger in Blake’s stomach chews at her beside the warm stir in her chest at Yang’s constant thoughtfulness. “You’re amazing,” Blake tells her honestly as they trail down the hallway by Blake’s lamplight.

“I know,” Yang grins with a shrug, teasing and light.

“No seriously, thanks for the light on the porch and for cooking all the time. It-” Blake clears her throat a bit and busies herself grabbing plate and silverware, focusing hard at the task at hand to avoid meeting Yang’s eyes locked heavily on her. “It means a lot to me, you caring enough to think of stuff like that.”

“Of course,” Yang says softly, playfully bumping hips with Blake as she pulls out a pan of roasted vegetables, baked spaghetti, and a few untouched slices of cheese bread from the oven, one of which she helps herself to. With the power out and darkness pressing in around them, the moment feels more intimate than it should. “I worried the shop would lose power and figured your drive home would be miserable enough that fumbling to get your key in the door would be the final straw. Besides, I love cooking and being needed.”

“Considering the state of this house, Yang, you’re plenty needed.”

_ Considering the state of my head, too _. But she doesn’t say that part out loud, zeros in on loading a plate with food and trying not to get too hung up on the swirl in her stomach at being taken care of so thoroughly, all this foreign territory that’s slowly becoming local. It’s hard not to balk at someone making her feel like, for the first time in her life, it could actually be okay to let someone do things for her, be there for her. That this isn’t something to feel guilty over.

They eat in relative silence, comfortable and calm, sheltered inside the darkness from the storm raging outside. She’s almost finished eating when Yang suddenly perks up and grins widely across the table at her, a hand coming up to stroke her chin as if it were a beard.

“I just had a thought.”

“Oh god.”

“No seriously, lightning’s struck my brain with this one.”

“Ah, a sharp shooter,” Blake jabs.

Yang puts on a good face of indignation but she laughs despite herself. “Okay, that was actually a pretty good one. I’m stealing that to use on Weiss. But really — what would you think of building a blanket fort?”

It’s a little ridiculous the leap of childish excitement the idea sparks for Blake. Her initial thought is to hide it, to keep the feeling safe where it can’t be criticized or weaponized. It takes conscious thought to remind herself that that’s not necessary anymore.

“Yeah, okay, that sounds like a lot of fun.” Even though she pushes through the urge to hide her excitement, she still uses putting her dishes in the sink to put a little distance between them. “I haven’t built a fort since I was a little kid.”

“Oh man, really?” Yang scoots her own chair back from the table and follows into the kitchen. The closing distance should feel more uncomfortable than it does. “Ruby and I used to always make them when the power went out. It’s almost tradition at this point. Though it has been a while since I’ve had the chance to build one.”

“Alright. Let’s do it.”

Yang’s answering grin, lit lowly by the lantern left on the table, is bright enough to make up for the lost power.

\---

It takes some work to get the sheet rubber banded to stay above them, strung up between the looming backs of multiple dining room chairs and weighted down on the back of the couch. Blake can’t help but feel positively gleeful as she gathers up all the pillows in the house while Yang scoops a sleeping Bee off her bed to bring along in case she wakes up scared. It's endearing to see the constant care and tenderness Yang pours over Bee.

Blake dumps the pillows unceremoniously at the mouth of the fort for Yang to pull inside and arrange while Blake goes back to grab blankets from both their beds. Hauling the comforters inside lends Blake her first glance at the space within, now full to the brim with fluffy bedding and the soft yellow glow of the plastic lantern flashlight. Yang grins back at her, looking just as pleased as Blake feels.

The whole thing is so over the top.

It’s perfect.

Bee’s been deposited on one of the couch cushions, the sheet stretched over the back of the couch keeping her neatly included but out of harm’s way as they shuffle pillows and blankets around recklessly to build the perfect nest they wiggle into.

The next clash of thunder makes Yang jump, and Blake’s laugh bubbles up before she can stop herself. Yang levels a playful, rueful glare her way, and asks why she looks so pleased, so at peace.

“Don’t these kinds of storms bother you, even just a bit?”

She wants to explain, starts to before pausing, before realizing how tangled up in her mess of a past her love of storms grew from. To try to explain it without touching on other things, on ugly things, wouldn’t be easy. She hesitates, chews on words that, for the first time ever, want to spring up readily, want to be given out, want to be trusted to someone else.

And there’s such an openness to Yang, such an unshakable steadiness that leaves Blake feeling like she can spill out anything, like it will all be welcomed home to rest. That everything will be safe here between them.

So timidly, testing at first, she lets herself begin.

She explains about storms, the way they used to terrify her before she realized how much they shake Adam. How then, suddenly, their power became a beacon of strength to her, a strike of solidarity, a source of power that could be all her own. A chance to enjoy something that frightens her abuser.

At that given word she pauses. Pushing on after feels daunting, a teetering moment when Blake’s lungs hold her hostage and her heart seems to stall, to hold its breath with her, every inch of her body frozen and poised to take in Yang’s reaction, to gauge what comes next. To fly, fight, or freeze at the wrong reaction.

But Yang’s small, encouraging nod just leaves Blake suddenly wondering how well she’s kept these tracks hidden, how blatant her experiences have been to outside observers, how much of her has been stained inside to out.

It’s hard to keep going but the words press out on her now that she’s started, demanding a continuance, a ruptured dam bursting. The pressure around it releases like a giving, like a pop, like a cracked wall collapsing. She prays it isn’t load-bearing.

It feels a little wrong to tell Yang all about Adam before she’s talked to Weiss about it, but things with Yang are so easy to give, and Yang never knew Adam, and never saw them together, and doesn’t have her own personal history around him to rehash, no moments to reframe around everything Blake spells out for her. And… it’s just easier, so much easier this way.

She lets herself spew, uncorks this stored up thing in her, this space she’s kept compressed for so long.

Telling Ilia felt necessary, something she needed to do, something that was owed. Telling Yang is something she wants to do freely given, a weight off rather than a peace offering. A fount of freedom, of not letting Adam keep her silent any longer. An expulsion this time rather than explanation.

And as hard as it is, it feels right this way. Firm now where before she felt weak telling it.

She allows herself the space to spell it all out from scratch. She talks about Adam in a way she hasn’t let herself before - about their slew of unhealthy dynamics in the beginning that led neatly into his controlling ones. About time spent together in Menagerie and the ways she thought they were building toward a future. About moving to Vale, and things getting worse. Getting lost in their relationship and slowly coming to realize that every day she was only getting buried deeper into it, that it was her grave she was digging not a shelter. How his bursts of anger turned to destruction of things which grew into lashing out at her.

Some parts of it she still can’t quite tread out yet, those secret, horrible bits of herself that started to become like Adam, that found a sliver of pleasure in hurting others by cutting them off from herself, of the relief she found in any power she could get her hands on. How much she grew to hate herself in the ways she reflected him. How that was the turning point when she knew just how trapped she was. She’s not sure how to go there in the story with someone else, not sure how she can ever let anyone in to hear it.

So she skirts around that part, levelly skips instead to the ways Adam pushed her to cut ties with others, isolated her, moved them out of Vale when her friends started to get too close. How hard she tried to push Weiss out to keep her from putting the pieces together. How Ilia confronted her before they left, begged her not to go, confessed she knew what was going on. How terrifying that was then and how still, Blake desperately wanted to defend Adam, protect their relationship at all costs. How viciously she cut off the friendship before they left, just to keep Ilia from messing things up.

Even as she retells these corners of her story, there’s grace and acceptance in explaining them to Yang that she’s not sure others could have given her, breathing room and forgiveness she isn't sure she could give herself just yet.

Yang listens. She offers little more than murmurs of condolence or affirmation that she’s hearing and lets Blake slip and sob and spill out everything that’s been building up since things with Adam ended.

Yang reaches out and Blake lets herself be held. Her collapse into Yang holds her trust up like wax paper to a sun, light shining through a cloudy film. She melts like Icarus, falls into undoing. Falls into arms that catch her thoroughly, keep her from drowning.

“It’s okay. You’re okay.” Yang’s strong call presses through the haze of crumbling, confident but crushing as it ghosts down on Blake.

She wants it to be.

Gods, _ she _ wants to be. 

She presses on, talks of where it’s left her, of these looming gaps in herself she’s slowly coming to face. Of these broken pieces of herself that she’s now left trying to sort through, struggles to identify as self or slave to her past, wrestles to make sense of them, suffocates to understand.

She lets words bubble up she hasn’t given herself permission to voice before. How lost she’s been feeling, how utterly washed out and splintered. How she hasn’t known how to reconcile who she was before with who she became with Adam and who she is now that she’s left him. She did so much growing up alongside him, shaped by him, it’s hard to tell what authentic parts are left. Where the pieces of him — of them — end, and where just she now begins. How unclear it is what’s actually her and what’s the person Adam honed her to be.

“I just feel like a jumble of scattered parts I’m pretending still make up a whole person and I don’t know how to make peace with where I am now. I thought I had everything figured out before, thought I had taken all these adult steps with a partner and that we were building a life together. I’m glad I left. Obviously I’m glad I left. But now I just feel so lost and so fucking dumb for everything I poured into that huge mistake. I feel like an idiot for how long I stayed. I wasted so much of my life on him.”

Yang sits quietly, letting Blake cry and heave and soak the shoulder of Yang’s shirt. And only once it’s apparent Blake’s finished word vomiting this whole thing up, only then does Yang choose to speak up.

She shifts a little, tucks a lock of Blake’s hair behind her ear, and rests the side of her head against the top of Blake’s. “I can’t sit here and tell you I completely get how you feel because that’d be a lie. But I can say you’re definitely not an idiot.” Blake can feel Yang’s voice vibrating as she speaks, fuzzy and centering. “I wish I had some sage advice that could magically make things better but there’s no simple answers for stuff like this.

“Breaking off from people we love who hurt us is one of the hardest things a person can do. It sucks to have to accept that loving someone doesn’t stop them from treating you badly and can’t make them be better to you than they choose to be. But who you became during your time with him isn’t all that you are. You are so much more than what was done to you and who he taught you to become.

“I know it feels like it was all wasted time, but time spent surviving isn’t a waste. You got yourself through everything that happened to you. You got out. It’d be reductive and misguided to call it a learning experience because that’s not what abuse is, but you did learn a lot through the experience and that isn’t a waste.

“I didn’t know you before so I can’t say you’re getting back to who you were then, but you don’t have to get back to that person. What you went through is a part of you now, and it can take time to work through those layers of yourself and heal those injured parts. And they may scar and leave marks that never completely fade. But you aren’t any less you just because you had to adapt to a dangerous situation. Who you were then responding to those experiences doesn’t define you.

“It can take a lot of work to get your brain to understand that you’re safe now and you don’t have to respond to the world the way you did before. Healing takes time, but already it seems to me like you’re a little lighter than when you first moved in, a little less like the world’s crushing in on you. And you’re surrounded now by people who are happy to help in any way you need it. I hope you know that.”

The stream of tears that follows is quieter than the first few rounds, most of Blake’s energy all sobbed out already, and Yang seems to understand, pulls her in tighter and lets them just sit softly under the patter of rain outside.

It takes a long time for Blake to pull away, to pull herself up and back together enough not to need someone else to lean on.

It’s hard to meet Yang’s eye just yet, gaze settling in on the wet stains around the collar of her shirt. Blake clears her throat, clinging to its gravely ache. “Sorry I snotted on you.”

Yang snorts and shrugs, smile gentle and sincere. “I’ve had worse. Drunk Weiss can be a real treat.”

It doesn’t quite pull a laugh from Blake but a smile creeps up at the edges. “I’m gonna go wash my face. Do you want me to bring you a new shirt?”

“It’s fine, I can get it. I should change into PJs anyway. And so should you. It’s not a real pillow fort until everyone’s in pajamas.”

Blake nods numbly, gathering herself off the floor and on tired muscles makes it to the bathroom to wash her puffy red face.

By the time she’s changed and crawling back into the fort, Yang’s already settled back in, a dark purple shirt hugging tight and tear-free on her as she lazily pets Bee’s head, chin resting on the back of her other hand on the couch as she stares at Bee with an adoring expression.

Blake perches next to them and runs her own hand along the soft fur on Bee’s belly.

“So…” Yang drawls slowly after a moment, reaching. “Do you want a book, or a movie, or maybe just some sleep?”

Each offering lays out measured footsteps from the heavy territory they’ve tackled tonight and it takes Blake a few moments to figure out what she wants to fill the space. 

Looking around for the book she brought into the fort at the start, she hands it over to Yang when she finds it and scoots over to settle back in against her shoulder, swiping tickling blonde hairs away as she gets comfortable.

“Read to me?”

Yang glances her way, so close for comfort with Blake tucked against her shoulder as she is. “Yeah.” Her voice is a whisper as she darts her glance away again, settles back in on the book instead. “You bet.”

The shift in focus is enough for Blake to breathe again as Yang’s voice trails out the beginning words of the chapter Blake left off on, not protesting at all at starting in the middle of a story she’s unfamiliar with.

For a little while Yang just reads to Blake, who after a few minutes shifts to lie down and tuck her head into Yang’s lap. Yang’s free hand trails fingers fluidly through Blake’s hair, occasionally scratching along her scalp as she goes.

When her eyes start drooping from the lulling scratches, her focus shifts to watching Yang’s lips form words. She struggles to follow along with the meaning behind them, caught up in a different train of thought entirely. She snaps out of it when Yang starts dropping drawn up locks of Blake’s dark hair down on her face, this smug little pleased-with-herself smile pressing her lips in at the corners.

“Not falling asleep on me, are you? Literally?” She motions to her lap.

Blake hides her indulgent smile and turns on her side, buries her face against Yang’s stomach to hide. “No.” Her voice is muffled against Yang’s shirt. “I’m not sleepy.” 

It comes out more petulant and childish than she means for it to. She can feel Yang’s laugh through her stomach, barely stops herself from playfully trying to bite her in indignation.

Yang’s voice is quiet, soft as the glow around them, gentle as the moment suspended over their pieced together space. “You can go to sleep if you’re tired. I don’t mind.”

“I don’t wanna. Come down here, you’re being too tall.” Blake’s hand blindly wraps around a hip to tug. She draws away enough to give Yang space to lie down beside her, closing her eyes as she settles into not sleeping.

“You get so grouchy when you’re tired. It’s kind of adorable,” Yang says as she slides down to meet Blake on her level. Even without looking, the smile in Yang’s voice is clear to her, easily pictured down to the exact curve of her lips that specific tone suggestions. Blake’s just about memorized all of her smiles by now.

“I have many talents,” Blake says dryly, a smile of her own covering her lips. She cracks an eye to look at Yang turned on her side to face Blake. “And I’m _ not _ tired.”

Yang trails a feather-light finger across Blake’s forehead to push back a deviant strand of hair. “Of course not. My mistake, Miss Belladonna, I shouldn’t have assumed. You’re right of course, you look wide awake.”

Yang’s finger doesn’t stop at tucking hair behind Blake’s ear this time, tagging along the outer shell of it all the way down to the hinge of Blake’s jaw, where it stalls for a moment, twin to Blake’s held breath, before sweeping up to ghost along her cheek bone, and then to the bridge of her nose.

It’s a struggle to keep her eyes from fluttering back open, dying for a glimpse of Yang taking up this task, but the exploratory finger crests up between her eyebrows and across one, then down to skip so, so gently over her eyelid, so she tries to stay still, to bask in every second of this.

The touch creeps back to the bridge of her nose, too firm to tickle but tenderly enough to leave every one of Blake’s nerves wrapped up in this movement. Then down it slides to the tip of her nose, pausing there a moment before Yang _ boops _ it lightly, tugging a tiny smile off Blake’s lips and a subconscious tilt of her head upward into the touch.

As if that catches the finger’s attention, it follows a line down the underside of Blake’s nose, along to the dip of her top lip, and then to the swell of her bottom one, curving along to a corner, now light enough to tickle. All the world is hung up on Yang’s fingertip and Blake couldn’t open her eyes if she wanted to, waiting. Holding to see what comes next.

Blake’s heart is a racketing mess, wildly trying to keep up with this bold rhythm Yang’s conducting with every stroke. It takes everything within her to keep her breathing steady and normal, to hold still and take this in rather than tilt further into the touch or let her lips break open.

The finger finally moves on, down to her chin, where it sweeps a trail along the slope of her neck. She hopes her heartbeat isn't obvious there, isn’t jutting out as noticeably as it feels like it is, hopes Yang’s finger doesn’t linger against her dancing pulse point. She’s sure the rise and fall of her chest must be out of sync now with any semblance of normal but she can only split her focus so many ways and it’s pretty wrapped up concentrating on the trajectory of Yang’s fingertip just now.

It crosses a bare collarbone before working its way back up Blake’s neck, finally on the other side than it started from. It’s only then that Blake realizes she must have turned at some point, shifted to lie on her back, an offer of unspoken permission to lean into this. She wants so badly to open her eyes and see what Yang’s face looks like right now but she’s terrified of stirring, of disrupting this wonderfully intimate mapping.

Her finger walks across Blake’s untouched cheek, skips across her eyelid and traces her other brow, evens out all the asymmetry of the places she’s left untouched so far. It finally works its way up her forehead and back to her hairline where it trades out covering new ground for getting lost in the old, the rest of her hand coming into play to stroke back through her hair.

It’s enough to let Blake finally open her eyes, tilting back onto her side to skim her gaze searchingly over Yang’s face staring so contently back at her it makes Blake swallow. Her breathing has barely evened out, heartbeat still a mess, and Yang’s hand trails down to fiddle with a lock of Blake’s hair by her shoulder.

Yang looks perfectly put together, breath coming easily and no pulse jumping at her neck as Blake’s eyes track searchingly along it. She seems so composed, staring back at her while Blake tries to get a read on Yang’s headspace. There’s enough affection swimming in her lilac eyes that Blake feels a bit like she’s drowning.

Unable to stay still any longer, to hold this peace, this silence, keep this unspoken thing unspoken any longer, she pulls up to lean on an elbow, Yang’s face turning slightly to follow the movement. But words stall out and she does the next best thing she can think of.

Timidly, trying not to shake, Blake reaches a finger out to lay against the bridge of Yang’s nose. A return. Yang’s eyes slide closed like giving in and Blake basks in the moment to stare unabashed, unscrutinized as she slowly starts her own mapping out of Yang’s features, her incredibly soft skin and the angles of her face.

Yang shows less restraint than Blake managed when Blake’s finger hits her lips which part almost instantly to let out a breath far less steady than Yang appears on the surface.

Blake takes her time forging her own haphazard path along Yang’s cheeks and jaw and eyelids and nose, along the slope of her neck and her collarbones and the shell of her ear and her eyebrows which Yang wiggles wildly as Blake tries to trace them. It makes her laugh, this rooted thing that Yang only grins at but keeps her eyes obediently closed to, following this unspoken rule. She looks for all the world like she’s trying to behave.

When Blake trails back to Yang’s chin, she pauses there, hesitating, hung up in her own pulse once again humming. Finger as an anchor point, her thumb falls lightly to the corner of Yang’s lips, traces the smooth curve of its underside in tender absolution. Yang stays perfectly still and Blake draws on steeled resolve.

Finally her hand retracts, only halfway, to catch a lock of hair between her fingers. She stays propped up on her elbow to keep peering down at Yang who’s left her eyes closed, still as a statue. She looks somehow even more content now than she did before.

The quiet peace is terrifying to break but her voice is clawing up her throat and there’s a fire under the words she finds herself lashing her tongue around.

“Yang?” She waits for the flutter of Yang’s eyes opening, for them to gain focus as they center on Blake, before she continues. Pressing on feels almost impossible but her heart’s beating bravery into her veins and she wants so hard, so much, she feels like she’s burning with it. “Can I kiss you?” Her pulse ramps up, beating even harder now, though Blake isn’t sure how that could be possible.

Yang’s reaction doesn’t exactly help, either. Her breath audibly catches, muscles stiffening, and her content look sloughs off like melting snow. Her mouth opens but nothing comes out and her brows pull up and her eyes get a little wider, her shock obvious, and Blake can’t fathom how Yang couldn’t have seen this question coming but somehow she looks absolutely blindsided by it.

Yang draws back a little, the smallest shift, but the distance speaks volumes she isn’t saying, doesn’t have to with a reaction like that. Blake’s gut wrenches and she falters in this, tries to put together pieces that aren’t fitting, fights the urge to run.

“I uh, don’t think that’s a good idea...”

“Oh. Right.” Instinctively she shrinks back.

Yang leans in again, hand reaching out as if to catch Blake before she can make a getaway. “Let me explain.”

“No, it’s okay. You don’t owe me an explanation. I just misread things.” She’s not sure how, after the breathtaking intimacy that just played out, but somehow those signs didn’t add up the same way to Yang as they did for Blake.

“You didn’t — misread things, I mean. And I do owe you an explanation. And want to kiss you.”

Well now she’s just even more utterly lost.

“It’s just- we live together. I don’t want _ anything _to jeopardize you feeling comfortable and safe living here. Power with your ex was always imbalanced, and I’d never want to put you through that again. I mean, I’m technically your landlord right now. And you said you’ve been trying to figure out who you are without him and who you are outside of a relationship.”

A vicious blush flumes in Yang’s cheeks then as she looks away, stares down at her fingers flexing in her lap. “You mean more to me than I think you realize. This is honestly not really a feeling I’m used to having for anyone, but I’m not sure what to do with it that wouldn’t be unfair to you.”

Blake breathes deeply, swirling in everything filling up between them, everything leaking out. She sighs, frowning as she shifts to open herself back up toward Yang. “So not even one kiss?” She’s only half joking but pitches her tone light enough not to add any more pressure to this already tense air straining between them.

Yang laughs. “You must think I’m built of stronger stuff than I am if you think I’d be fine stopping at just one kiss with you.”

“I believe in you,” Blake says softly, lowly, leaning in just a little, keeping just enough distance not to be pushing boundaries.

Yang swallows and stares at her for a long moment and Blake feels every inch of her expression being weighed, being soaked in. Her breath catches and holds as Yang’s hands come up to cup her face and her thumbs settle over Blake’s lips.

And then Yang presses a kiss to the back of her thumbs, bearing them down against Blake’s own mouth so softly it aches. It’s intimately close and devastating in its distance, warm, and filled with pressure so close to the real thing. And it’s almost enough, full of feeling Blake can nearly pass off as a real kiss as she closes her eyes and foolishly leans into this compromise.

It’s the way Yang’s fingers are curled around her jawline, cupping her close, that makes her almost believe it. Yang’s forehead rests against her own just the way she pictured it would as Yang pulls away, and it’s another arrow in a quiver Blake carries in her chest for this girl. 

The moment that follows is heavy and full, rigidly fragile, weighed down from everything sitting unwound between them until Yang breaks the tension open with a thin, scoffing laugh.

“Yep, that sucked.” Yang’s voice is breathy and uneven as she flops back into the pillow behind her. “Way worse than just not getting to kiss you.”

Blake snorts, thankful for Yang’s attempt to free them from this looming stalemate. “_That _ sucked? You’re the one who started things, running your finger everywhere like that’s not gonna leave me so wound up I might die.”

Yang’s pitiful look falls off her face, a shit-eating grin sprouting up behind it. “You’re all wound up? That easily?” She wiggles her eyebrows, looking like she’s just found out it’s her birthday.

Blake huffs and palms Yang’s face away with a grunt. “Don’t be a dick.”

Yang’s laugh lights the inside of Blake’s rib cage, glowing hot and steady there, live enough to ground her.

“Okay fine, you’re right, it was a dick move. I shouldn’t have done that if I knew I wasn’t going to let anything else happen. Though I’ll admit I wasn’t completely thinking it through when I started. Sorry.”

Blake shrugs, suddenly uncomfortable. Rejection’s hard enough to chew without having to talk about it, linger over it.

“So.” Yang’s tone is sharp and bright, a far cry different from the apologetic teasing one a moment ago. “I think we should come up with some ground rules.”

Blake turns a flat glare on her. “Ground rules?” she repeats, unimpressed, trying to flatten any interest from her voice.

“Yes, ground rules. Since we’ve already established we’re both a little foolish and reckless when it comes to this thing between us.”

“Foolish and reckless? Gods, Xiao Long, you sure know how to compliment a girl.”

“Oh, for fucks sake. Fine. _ I’m _ foolish and reckless and you’re just stupidly hot and irresistible. Better?”

It is, not that Blake’s going to tell her that. It’s also not better, running up a new bill of excitement clenching low in her stomach at Yang calling her hot. Not that she’s going to give Yang any hint whatsoever about the way her words make Blake’s stomach flip and squeeze, the way she has to fight to keep from swallowing thickly against her pulse hammering away in her throat.

“Ground rules, Yang. Focus. What’s your point?”

“I am focused. That’s my whole point.” Yang huffs, sounding overly exasperated, shuffling back to lie strewn across Blake’s lap, the back of her hand coming up to press dramatically against her forehead. “You’re too attractive to trust myself around unrestricted. We should have rules.”

“Uh, okay, rule number one: don’t fucking tease me like that and then leave me hanging.”

Yang actually sits up with purpose, grabbing her phone and tapping quickly away on it as if that’s actually a point she needs written down to remember, and Blake’s left feeling a well of exasperation at this whole situation. Even more so when the tip of Yang’s tongue pokes out at the corner of her mouth in absent concentration.

“Okay, rule two: no kissing, obviously,” Yang says, typing as she speaks.

Blake clicks her tongue. “Unfortunate.”

Yang smirks but rolls her eyes, not looking away from her phone as she finishes tapping out rule two.

“Rule number three: you’ve gotta stop flirting with me all the time. It’s way too distracting.”

“_ I _have to stop flirting? What about you?”

“Okay right, rule three: no flirting, period.”

“These rules suck.”

“Rule number four: no sucking. That’s definitely crossing a line.”

Blake groans and buries her face in a pillow, only partly to hide the blush that seeps up at the mental picture that thought provokes. “Remind me again why I like you?”

“Can’t. That breaks rule number three.”

“Yang,” Blake growls.

“Rule five: none of that gravely tone you’re doing. It’s way too sexy.” Yang actually looks like she’s being serious.

“Who’s breaking rule three now?” Blake huffs and crosses her arms.

Yang grimaces. “Yikes, you’re right. Damn, this is harder than I thought.”

“If we’re just making up ridiculous rules at this point then you shouldn’t wear tank tops anymore. They show off your muscles way too well.”

Yang’s eyes snap up from her phone to lock with Blake’s, a Cheshire grin spreading across her lips. “Oh really? Just my muscles?”

“Well your boobs look good in everything but telling you not to wear shirts wouldn’t exactly help me out here.”

“Fair.” She jots down something more, presumably a rule about tank tops.

“Gods, this is going to be so much harder to deal with now that we’ve broached this topic, isn’t it?” Blake does her best to ignore Yang's pleased expression.

“Harder to deal with my muscles? Yeah probably.”

“Fucking hell. No, not your muscles, smartass. I mean this—” she waves a hand between them, “this thing, this whatever.”

“You can say the word crush. It won’t bite.”

Gods, if only it was just a crush. It’s stupid that she hopes it's more than just a crush for Yang as well.

“Sure. That. Whatever. Are you done with your rules yet? I think I’m ready to go to sleep.”

A smile quirks at Yang’s lips. “Yeah, I’m done. For now.”

She slides down to lie beside Blake, fluffing a pillow up under her head as she settles and flips off the lantern light.

The air feels thick in Blake’s lungs as she lies there with Yang so close again. It’s uncomfortably quiet for a few long moments, their proximity screaming in the silence. Blake’s itching to close the distance but terrified to move. Her breath is loud in her own ears and she listens to Yang’s shallow breathing beside her, broadcasting just how wide awake she is as well.

After an aching string of drawn out minutes, Blake braves the silence, so uncomfortably aware of how weird things suddenly feel between them now. “Yang?”

“Yeah?” her voice sounds just as breathless, just as small.

“Is cuddling against the rules now?”

In answer Yang’s hand blindly reaches out to curl around Blake’s hip and draw her in close against Yang’s warm side.

“No, that’d be the stupidest rule to make.” The heat of her breath fans against the side of Blake’s neck and the proximity is equal parts comforting and dangerous.

“I don’t know, we came up with some pretty dumb rules.”

“Like muscles.” A smile is blatant in her tone even through the dark.

Settling in a little closer, enjoying the press of the very muscles in question, Blake shakes her head a little before tucking into the crook of Yang’s neck. “I was thinking more about that not kissing one.”

This close against her, Yang’s shiver is obvious and Blake counts it a victory, though the price of winning is just further built up frustration. Yang follows up with a lingering kiss to her forehead, murmuring her answer against Blake’s skin. “Yeah, that’s a pretty dumb one, too.”

It’s quiet for long enough that Blake starts to drift off before Yang whispers again, barely loud enough to register.

“I don’t want to lose this. I don’t want to lose you.” There’s a desperation to Yang’s tone that takes the sharp edge off this layered rejection, Yang obviously wanting her back even if not allowing it in the way they both want.

It sucks, but the reasoning behind Yang’s explanation is as thoughtful as it is frustrating. She’s not sure how something can hurt so much at the same time it comforts and fills her up.

Yang’s arms squeeze her close, hard for a long moment as if to reassure herself Blake is really there, before loosening up for Yang to brush another kiss to the crown of her head. The gesture means so much, both good and bad, and all Blake can process is wondering where this leaves them as she shrugs in a little closer.

There’s surely going to be a breaking point between them. She wonders what it’ll be. And which side of this divide they’ll end up on when it comes.

\---

Sleeping on the floor leaves Yang’s back aching the rest of the next day despite how comfortable she felt waking with Blake still curled against her. Blake’s afternoon shift means they each get to sleep in later than usual but by the time they rouse, Blake doesn’t have long to linger before getting ready for work and slipping out the door. And honestly it’s a bit of a blessing. Yang desperately needs some time and space to mentally regroup after everything that happened the night before.

But after a long shower to soak her protesting back, stewing in a roil of second-guessing and overthinking, picking over every little detail, she’s ready to settle into some work that can take her mind off of the subject entirely.

The drive to Patch gives her just enough time to get riled up again by the time she’s pulling into her dad’s driveway. His truck is gone, the house left empty, so she lets herself into the workshop behind the garage.

The pleasant smell of sawdust hits like a wave of calm.

She loosens up as she sets to working on the commissioned cabinets she and her dad have been chipping away at for the last few days. Working with her hands takes just enough of the edge off to let her thoughts slide more smoothly, drifting back to wrap around Blake once more as she tries to find her balance between falling for Blake and trying to hold on to her.

\---

“Could you help zip me up?” Blake asks, turning in the sleeveless black dress she’s wearing, pulling her hair over one shoulder to allow Yang to reach the open zipper between her shoulder blades.

“Yeah,” Yang’s voice isn’t as steady as she wishes it was but she does her best to pull herself together. It’s a fucking zipper. Get over it.

The narrow strip of exposed skin on Blake’s back disappears inch by inch that Yang buries under the simple dress. Reaching the end, her fingers linger selfishly, lightly, at the base of Blake’s neck. A hard breath is all she can manage as she draws her hand away. When Blake turns, Yang realizes just how close they’re standing.

Her feet won’t pull her away.

Blake’s eyes are darker than they were a moment ago, lids a little lowered, and it’s nice to know she’s not the only one feeling so terribly affected by something small like proximity.

Silly, that, considering how common sharing space has been between them all along. But the night before is obviously as present and pressing in Blake’s mind as it has been in Yang’s all day.

Everything feels fuller after having fessed up these feelings sitting between them.

And though they’re reclaiming this ease of closeness and freely given touches, as platonic as they can reign themselves in to maintaining, there’s an innate intimacy laced through this act, of helping someone with a zipper, a button, helping someone clothe themselves. It’s layered deeply into the air under the weight of everything they’re trying to hold back, woven along boundary lines they’re trying to stand by.

Yang clears her throat, breaks away somehow against the draw to stay close, closer.

“You look great. As always. Your coworkers are going to lose their minds to see you out of dress code like this.”

Blake rolls her eyes but a light flush is soft on her cheeks. “It’s a simple dress.” She shrugs. “Nothing special.”

“Nothing’s simple on you though.”

“Yang,” Blake draws faintly, a warning to her tone.

“Right. Sorry. Rule three. I’ll be good.” She holds up her hands in surrender and chides herself for the comment.

She’s not wrong though. Blake has such an effortless way of making everything she wears look so good, so breathtaking. It’s a little overwhelming at times, if she’s being honest. Ignoring these feelings is nearly impossible when Blake looks so fucking good all the time. Yang’s _ got _ to get a better grip on herself. She was the one that pushed them to keep things platonic after all, to keep them safe, keep them steady.

It’s hard not to wish she could take that all back, take back her promise to Weiss, take back her explanation to Blake, take back her own gnawing affirmation that this is the right thing to do for them.

But that’s just it, isn’t it? It wouldn’t be right to jump into things with Blake now, not after hearing how messed up things were with her ex. Blake deserves so much better than to rush into something new while she’s still sorting all that out. And she deserves something more normal and approachable than starting something with someone she’s already living with.

Yang’s not going to risk losing her. Not to this.

“Have fun tonight.” And she means it, hopes with everything in her that Blake’s friends from work look after her and help her get out of her head a little. They’ve both been a little too bogged down in their heads today.

“Thanks. You too. Tell Ruby and Tai I said hi.”

“Will do.” Family dinner isn’t for another hour but Yang’s stomach growls loudly.

Blake’s lips twitch as she pulls away to grab her keys and make for the door. “Try not to starve while I’m gone.”

“No promises.”

It’s hard to put the thought out of her head, of Blake at family dinner with them some day in the future.

_ Stop it. _

She shakes her head and goes to get ready.

\---

The bar is crowded and noisy and it takes forever for them to grab a table big enough for the five of them. It’s really not the kind of social scene Blake generally goes for but she’s been trying to be more intentional about stretching her comfort zone and she feels safe with her coworkers. So even though she wants to leave almost as soon as they get there, she pushes through her apprehension and grabs a drink with the rest of the group, hoping it’ll make relaxing into their night a little bit easier.

And it does at the start, enough for her to actually start enjoying herself. Enough to give Sun a hard time with the rest of the group when they spot his phone on the table light up with a picture of a familiar blue-haired customer.

“Oh my gods, you finally got his number?” Ilia shouts over the music, snatching up Sun’s phone before he can save himself. “Cute picture.” Ilia smirks and turns the phone around for the rest of them to get a good look at what looks suspiciously like a shirtless Neptune lying in bed, the angle of the photo too steep for it to have been a selfie.

“Aw, Neptune! I haven’t seen him come in for ages.” Coco grins, taking the phone from Ilia, a safe distance away from Sun’s reaching, across the table from him as she is.

Velvet laughs. “That’s because Sun hasn’t been working evening shifts with you. I can’t get Neptune to stay away long enough for Sun to stay focused on work for more than a few minutes.”

“Aren’t the planets supposed to revolve around the sun, not the other way around?” Ilia adopts a faux thoughtful look to go along with her horrible joke.

“Ha ha ha, you’re all so funny,” Sun grumbles, holding out his hand for his phone which goes ignored in favor of passing it to Blake for a better look.

“When did this picture happen anyway? I didn’t know you two were actually in each other’s orbit.” Blake immediately pulls a face of regret at making such a dumb joke. Coco gives an unimpressed “wow” but Ilia at least snorts at it. She’s such a good friend.

Sun scoffs, hand coming to his chest in affront. “You too, Blake? I thought I could count on you at least to be on my side.”

“You can. I’m asking for details, dude. When did this happen? You’ve been holding out on me.” She hands his phone back to him finally, shares a smirking look with Ilia when Sun wastes no time zeroing in on his phone, ignoring them to answer Neptune’s text.

“Yeah, come on, let’s hear some details. When did you two finally get together?” Coco asks, sipping her drink.

“We aren’t _ together _ together yet.” Sun looks a little defensive, spinning his beer glass between his palms once he sets his phone down. “It’s all still new. Just a couple weeks.”

“Aww, young love,” Velvet coos.

Sun fixes her with a sharp look, one that she obviously understands but Blake can only guess at. Whatever it means, Velvet goes vibrantly red at it.

“I need a refill. Anyone else want another?” Velvet says in a rush before draining what’s left of her drink.

Sun holds up his half-drunk beer. “While you’re going, might as well.”

“I need another,” Coco agrees, standing up as she does. “Here, I’ll come along.”

But Velvet waves her back down. “No, that’s okay, I’ve got it.” Her voice is higher than it should be though.

Blake shoots Sun a questioning look but he shakes his head, simply mouthing “later,” so Blake doesn’t press it.

“Speaking of young love, look sharp, Belladonna. Someone’s got an admirer,” Coco says over a grin.

Blake flames red for a moment, thinking of Yang on impulse before she follows Coco’s eyeline to a guy across the bar who is in fact definitely checking her out.

“Oh gods.” Blake ducks her head and turns away, hoping he doesn’t take her looking at him as invitation to come over.

“Oh boy, he looks like _ quite _ the catch,” Ilia says sarcastically after taking her own glance. “Oh look, here he comes.”

“Fuck.”

He saddles up to their group in a saunter, pushing between Sun and Ilia to leer across the table at Blake.

“Hi, beautiful. I’m Cardin, and I’ve got more dick than I’ve got brains.” He says it like it’s something to be proud of, a great opening line, and looks incredibly smug to have just said something so very stupid. Though fair enough, with a leading line like that, stupidity shouldn’t be surprising.

Blake’s not sure what her own face must look like but Coco’s eyebrows shoot high enough to touch her hairline, Ilia’s eye roll can be felt from across the table, and Sun tips his beer back for a long chug, expression bare enough to show the amusement he’s restraining, drinking to keep himself from saying something rash.

It’s hard not to laugh at the whole thing. Surveying Cardin with a flat stare, an unimpressed eyebrow cocked, Blake doesn’t bother hiding how thoroughly underwhelmed she is by him. “Hi, I’m Blake, and _ I’ve _ got more dick than you’ve got brains.”

Sun’s spit take showers Cardin’s dumbfounded expression in a spray of cheap beer, giving Blake only the barest second to appreciate the dip of his small frown, as he tries to work that one out before he’s covered in a dripping mist of pale ale. Ilia barely manages to jerk back in time to avoid the edge of the beer-cloud that makes it past Cardin.

“Ah shit, dude, my bad,” is all Sun says, sounding genuine but hardly remorseful as he dabs at Cardin’s chin with a drink napkin, a poorly swallowed smile tearing at the edges of his mouth in struggling twitches.

“Get the _ fuck _ off,” Cardin bellows in a growl, shoving Sun away from him with a spilling slosh of what’s left of Sun’s beer. He glares at Sun for a terrifying moment like he’s contemplating a real fight before jerking away from the table and stalking off into a din of people who pull back from him readily as he roughly shoulders past.

It takes some effort to fight down the slick burn of fear clenching tightly in Blake’s stomach as he leaves, bright red battle flags of a brittle, unchecked anger jumping to challenge all the steady progress Blake’s been making. She squeezes her eyes shut for a shaky beat, breathing through her nose in a slow drawl, nails digging half-moons harshly into her palms, a thankful thread of grounding coiled tightly in her grasp.

“Well, he was a treat,” Sun chirps, letting his grin spring up in full force now, dipping into a momentary frown when his eyes land on his nearly empty glass of beer. 

“I’m astounded he didn’t punch you,” Ilia admits, clinking the lip of her glass against Sun’s in a faint cheers.

Blake’s uncomfortably thankful he didn’t. She plasters on a hollow smile, wishing she could revel the same way her friends are, and swallows hard when she catches Coco watching her. Shifting self-consciously under the weight of it, Blake tries to roll her eyes, aims for levity, and Coco graciously offers a muted smile tucked back in her cheek and a tiny bob of her head that leaves Blake feeling oddly reassured.

“Gods that wait was awful,” Velvet grumbles, nimbly squeezing back in at the table with the new round of drinks for herself, Coco, and Sun, who perks up brightly as she sets a new beer in front of him. “What’d I miss?”

“Oh, not much, just Blake making a total fool out of this sleazy dude trying to hit on her and Sun spraying beer all over the idiot.” Coco says it levelly, shedding a simple, nonchalant shrug as she reaches past Velvet for her own drink.

“Really?”

Blake only struggles with a smile and shrug at Velvet’s eager glance her way.

“Damn, why do I always miss the best parts?” Velvet pouts.

“More like why does Coco always downplay shit? It was hilarious! Okay so this big muscly dude…”

Blake tunes out the instant replay Sun provides for Velvet in animated detail. Instead she focuses first on one deep breath, then another, and another. By the time she reaches for her glass again, her hand is almost steady.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all are healthy and well. Thank you so much to everyone who has commented, kudosed, and bookmarked this story. On a really low day for me during this COVID-19 mess I read back through comments here and found a lot of comfort and encouragement from them. 
> 
> Have a favorite moment or line from this chapter? Let me know what it was in a comment down below <3


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